


Turn A Blind Optic

by Transformatron



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Abuse, BDSM, BDSM mistaken for abuse, Drunken Shenanigans, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Past Abuse, Post-Predacons Rising (Prime Movie), Redemption, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics, Team as Family, The Cons become the Bots' weird lodgers, assumed abuse, rating raised for Chapter 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-09-15 21:28:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16941060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Transformatron/pseuds/Transformatron
Summary: The war is over. Optimus is dead. The Decepticons have renounced their cause.And, to make matters worse, Starscream is in the medbay again.In which Bumblebee mistakes a consensual BDSM-relationship for abuse, and tries to save a rather bewildered Seeker.





	1. It All Ends

No more war.

Some days, Bee thought he could spend joors sprawled on his berth, in-venting, ex-venting, repeating those words in the privacy of his helm.

No more war.

No more Optimus.

No more Primes.

Victory. A bittersweet word, like energon coughed from a ruptured fuel-tank, smouldering on the back of Bee's tongue.

He should've expected this. The Civil War had raged for eons; by now, Bee knew to never pray for triumph without pain, joy without loss, love without hollow sparkbreak. The greater the win, the sorer the sacrifice required to attain it. It was just the way the universe rolled.

This time, though, the sacrifice had almost been too much to bear.

Optimus Prime had returned the Allspark to Cybertron's core. He forfeited his physical form in the process. Sparks had erupted from the well, a glittering blizzard, dancing and twirling like Earthling fireflies. It was beautiful. It was awful. A birth and a funeral, merged into one.

Another transformation.

Bumblebee lay on his back, one leg bent up at the knee. Windows didn't gel with the _Nemesis's_ villain-chic style; there was no natural light. Bee kept track of the world through the security monitors, whose feeds he'd wired to his datapad.

Couldn't be too careful, with Cons about.

Everything was as it should be. The night hung low. No orange haze on the horizon, where Bee's oldest memory protocols informed him that the Golden City was supposed to rise. The darkness was inky and thick, like you should be able to reach out and stir it. Scraplets snoozed in the Sea of Rust. The moons spun over Cybertron, Iacon slumbered beneath the rubble of millennia-old incendiary attacks.

And - oh, frag it.

Starscream was breaking into the medbay again.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

**Thirty Days Previously**

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Optimus said that _e_ very _spark has the capacity to change._ And so, when the Warlord walked away, Bumblebee walked after him.

"Wait!"

The Warlord waited. "What more do you wish of me, scout?"

His voice - the voice that had chased Bee through his nightmares; the voice that had stolen his - thrummed deep, gruff as ever. But it was not heavy with menace. A different weight dragged on it, one Bumblebee never expected to hear from a Decepticon.

Regret.

"Bee..." Arcee. She sounded disapproving.

Smokescreen gripped Bee's arm. Bee shook him off.

He took another step forwards. Not enough to leave his friends, or to bridge the gap that stretched between them and the last fragments of the Decepticon army.

"There will be mechs returning," Bee told Megatron. He stood straight, he stood tall. He imagined Optimus was watching him, battle mask hiding his smile. "Not all of them have Autobot sympathies."

Even at this distance, across a half-mile of twisted, buckled scrap metal, Megatron's new frame was ugly as the pit. Bee doubted Knock Out would go near it with a buffer, even if Megatron ordered him to. It bore a dirty-grey patina and was pockmarked with asymmetrical, semi-biotic growths that reminded Bee of the lichens back on Earth. They shone dully, when Megatron turned on him and bared his pointed teeth.

"Your point?"

"If you want to see Cybertron returned to its former glory, you can't just run away." Bee fought down his horrible, spark-twisting awareness that he was calling the Decepticon Lord a coward, and would likely pay the ultimate price. This was important. This needed to be said. "You should stay here. You should work _with_ us. If Cybertron's rejuvenation is to be a success, we must present a united front -"

" _United_?" Starscream still had a shell-shocked look about him, as if Megatron had sent a fist flying towards his faceplates when he told him the Decepticons were through. From the dark whispers about the nature of their relationship, it wouldn't be the first time. " _Us?_ "

"After millennia of war?" Ratchet ex-vented in a loud gust. "As loathe as I am to agree with Starscream, the mech raises a valid point."

The other Autobots also let their protests be known.

"Bee! This is crazy!"

"Bulk's right. He's the aft-hole who broke your voicebox, remember?"

"Far too dangerous."

"We can't trust them! They've proved as much every time we give them a chance."

"Yes," said Bee, quietly. "And Optimus would give them another one."

"Why?" Arcee wanted to know. "So they can stab us in the backs? _Again?_ "

Megatron let their jabber wash over him. He had optics only for Bumblebee.

Bee knew that measured, respectful look. He'd just never seen the Warlord bestow it on anyone but Prime - when he wasn't doing his utmost to snuff his spark, of course.

"You believe this is necessary." Megatron's low voice brought a halt to the Autobot's protests, as well as Starscream's twitters of dissent. "Then I will stay."

Starscream skittered forwards on fragile heel-struts. "Master, please! I fear your trauma at the hand of Unicron has left lingering scars on your mind! What you are proposing is - is _insane!_ "

Megatron swung to face him. None of the assembled Autobots missed Starscream's flinch. "I know insanity. My mind has never been clearer than it is now, free of Unicron's taint. Free of my own foolish ambitions, which tore this world apart for so long. If I am to join the Well when I die, I would wish for a legacy. This legacy will be a restored Cybertron, not a desecrated husk." He straightened, looming over the slim Seeker. "Stay by my side or fly away. Keep preaching misrule and violence, if that is what you wish." His violet eyes flashed. "It will be your doom."

Starscream retreated, wings chittering. Bumblebee could hear them - a high rattle, like a bot's last intake before they died. "You - you think so, Master?"

"Yes." Megatron followed him, taking one step to Starscream's three. Moving slowly, smoothly, each pace a casual display of his ground-shaking strength. He kept the Seeker trapped in his shadow. "Because if I believe you pose a threat to the peace I wish to build, I will eliminate you with my own servos. Do not think my violence neutered. I merely turn it towards a different cause."

Starscream's wings shook at their lowest, ailerons pointed at his pedes. "I - I see. You make a - a compelling argument, Master."

Arcee grit her dentae. "Bee, we need to talk about this. You can't expect me - you can't expect any of us! - to work with _that_ piece of slag."

"You don't have to buddy up with them," Bee tried. "Just don't actively _try_ to kill them. Unless they do something to deserve it."

Arcee crossed her arms. "I'll be waiting on that day."

"Same," said Smokescreen. Then, to Bee, _sotto voce_ \- "They're not staying in the _Nemesis,_ right?"

"To be fair," said Knock Out, although he looked distinctly uneasy about it, "there _is_ enough room. Most of the berthspace was taken up by the Vehicons, and they're all engaged on the Iacon project."

Ratchet sighed. "I don't like this."

Bee didn't expect him to. "It's what Optimus would've wanted. And I think - I know - it's our planet's best chance for revival."

Starscream, still cowering in his Master's shadow, kept glancing at the horizon. There was a wistfulness to his expression, as if he longed for freedom but didn't quite dare to flip-and-burn.

He must trust Megatron's resolve. Bee was inclined to follow his lead.

"Fine," Arcee growled. "But once all this is over, they will answer for their crimes. No amnesty. Not for Cliff."

"What about the Eradicons?" was Megatron's slick reply. "The Vehicons? Your forces are not the only ones to have been depleted since this conflict began. Few of the casualties were friendly-fire."

"We never _tortured_ mechs," growled Arcee.

Starscream looked offended. "I didn't _torture_ him. I shoved my claws into his chassis and tore out his spark. He didn't have time to scream."

Not the wisest move, on his part. Smokescreen had to wrap both arms around Arcee and brace his pedes to stop her giving Starscream similar treatment.

Knock Out tapped his pointed fore-digits. "Admittedly, Screamer and I performed an ill-fated experiment with dark energon that may have contributed to the demise of our troops -"

Megatron's eyes flashed again. "Silence!"

And silence fell. Bumblebee shook his helm. "No. No more of that. You don't give orders."

"And," Smokescreen cut in, still using himself as a full-body restraint while Arcee squirmed and swore, "you don't get your old cabin back." He rolled his optics at Bumblebee's glare. "What? It's as big as the Jasper base! Megs doesn't deserve it."

"Megatron deserves _none_ of this." While all the Autobots grieved for Optimus, Ratchet would grieve longest and loneliest. Still, the old medic found the strength to draw himself up. He set his shoulders, raised his helm, squared his jaw. "However, Bumblebee is correct. We are not deciding who _deserves_ what _._ We are deciding what needs to be done."

Bumblebee was so grateful he might burst from it. He didn't know what he'd have done, if Ratchet had told him this was wrong. He wouldn't have been able to argue him down, not even in Optimus's name.

"Do we have an agreement?" he called. "We can work out the details later. But for now, do you swear to a ceasefire? Do you promise to set aside your quest for leadership and help us build a new, brighter Cybertron?"

"No Caste system," said Megatron. His voice was deep as the All-Spark's well. "No more slaves."

Optimus always claimed that Megatron began his rise as a revolutionary, fighting for abolition. Until now, Bee had never believed it.

"Deal," he said.

Megatron's lip plates rolled off his serrated teeth. "Deal. Come, Starscream. We must find ourselves new accommodations. I think the Z-deck should provide ample space."

"But I - I -" Starscream cowered behind his lord. What a ridiculous mech. Bee would find him funny, if he didn't know what this flighty little aerial was capable of. "Are you sure it's _safe,_ My Liege? We have terminated their allies - I was the one to kill Cliffjumper!"

Arcee champed her jaw. "Let me down, Smoke."

Smokescreen gulped. "Promise you won't go get yourself off-lined?"

Arcee glowered at Starscream.  "I can control myself," she said. "So long as that one stays out of my way."

Bumblebee squeezed her arm, once Smokescreen had released her. Arcee lost two partners to two Cons, and now one of the culprits stood before her. Her fury was understandable - and her mastery of it was nothing short of impressive. Bee could think of few times he'd been prouder.

"It's what Optimus would've wanted," he said.

Starscream cast the lot of them a fretful scowl, wringing those long, clawed hands. He scuttled after his Master.

Arcee gazed into the well. Cybertron's core lay still, now that the fountain of sparks had simmered away. "Yeah," she said, softly. "It had better be."

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Things were rough at first. Bee wouldn't have expected it any other way. In fact, if events had progressed with  _less_ friction, he might've suspected a trap.

But no. Here they were, a whole lunar-cycle later. Con and Autobots, co-existing. And no bot had been off-lined!

It was, as the devout might say, a Primus-blessed miracle.

Bee sat on the side of the well, swinging his pedes over the plunge. "We've finally gotten a hail on the comms," he said. "A refugee colony, willing to return. They're putting their trust in us - Autobots and Decepticons alike." He smiled, not looking down into the planet's glistening core, but instead raising his face to the sun, as it cast its rays at a planet on-the-mend. "They'll be back before the end of the astral year. I think you'd be proud of us, Optimus. I sure hope so, at least, otherwise all my diplomacy skills are going to waste."

He imagined a silence. Different to the muffled quiet currently surrounding him, which was interspersed with a thousand faraway rumbles. Bulkhead activating the ground bridge to visit his building site. The tramp of the Vehicons' pedes - who'd had to be taught to march out-of-step, after shaking apart some of the Wreckers' earlier test-constructions. An argument was brewing between the medics, the details of which were too hushed for Bee to hear. It ended with the  _bonk_ of a wrench and a wail of "My finish!"

Bee imagined a warm silence. The silence of another bot beside you. Their steady intakes and ex-vents, the slow thrum of their engine. The silence one wasn't expected to fill, just to exist in.

"I miss you," he said, quietly. "You knew when you went in there. You knew any of us would've gone in your place. And yet, none of us could. So you did it anyway, to save the world, and here we are. And although I wish you were here to tell us we're on the right track, I like to think you're still watching. Just another transformation, right?"

Cybertron's star edged ever-closer to the horizon. Twilight spilled wine-dark over the great rust sea. Time to bring this report to its conclusion.

"There's one thing that's been bugging me." Bee leaned forwards, letting his clasped servos dangle between his knees. "It's that damn Seeker, Optimus."

 

 

* * *

 

  

Starscream was careful. Sneaky, really. Yes, that was a better word. Sneak, sneak, sneak, like he had something to hide.

That was what tipped Bee off, as he scrolled through the security footage. One of Arcee's conditions for this cohabiting-with-the-enemy scheme was that they keep an eye on them. Bumblebee had agreed - but he only checked the cameras in public spaces. He was no Red Alert. Let Megatron and Starscream keep their privacy - so long as they didn't mind the occasional room inspection.

At a quarter past midnight, Starscream had padded through the corridors. He had a clear purpose; his heading took him straight to the medbay, tiptoeing past Knock Out's quarters. He hadn't alerted him, or Ratchet, who had commandeered the room on the medbay's far side. Each heeled pede had been laid down with exquisite care, each intake measured.

He didn't want to be caught.

Bee shook his helm. He was up to something, alright.

He switched to the medbay camera. Still a public place. And if Starscream was sabotaging equipment, better to know sooner rather than later, before the next time one of them got hurt.

But Starscream didn't slash through the stasis tubes around the operation berth, or attempt to mangle the monitor machinery. It seemed his intentions weren't destructive. He retrieved an emergency patch kit and retreated, not bothering to hide his limp.

A flash caught Bee's optics. The lights aboard the  _Nemesis_  dimmed during the night-cycle, but so long as energon flowed through the warship's piping, they'd never extinguish completely. They glimmered to life around Starscream as he walked, bright enough to bounce off the dent in his leg.

The dent that hadn't been there yesterday.

Bee dropped back against his berth, one arm flopping over his optics. Dammit.

Optimus wouldn't let this slide by. Optimus would care - because Optimus  _always_ cared. Even for those who didn't deserve it - a narrow pool of mechs, of which Starscream was undoubtedly the archetype.

If that was a scar from Arcee's blasters... If she'd risked their truce, just for a taste of vengeance...

Bee shook his helm. He wasn't going to let peace slide from their grasp, not even for Cliffjumper's sake. He sat, perching the camera on his knee, manipulating the telescopic zoom function. The lens irised open. The image grew until it filled the screen.

Bee's breath caught. His spark whirled. Deep in his tank, last night's rations churned like they wanted to revisit him.

That was no ordinary dent. It was a  _hand print,_  far larger than Bee's own, crushed into the metal plating of Starscream's thigh.

But by now, morning was on its way. Bee was watching re-runs. Whatever had transpired between the Decepticons during the wee hours of the night, it was too late to storm down to the  _Nemesis's_ bilges and put a stop to it.

Bee turned off the camera. He let his helm drop forwards, catching it in tired hands.

"Scrap," he muttered. "Megatron."

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Why did Starscream go back? That was the question currently plaguing Bumblebee's mind.

He remembered the first time they brought the Seeker in, a clamp on his wings, slender wrists locked in electromagnetic stasis-cuffs. They'd thought him defenceless. Harmless. They'd been wrong.

Arcee had borne the brunt of that skirmish, and Bee, like his fellow Autobots, had sworn to never underestimate the Decepticon Air Commander again. But according to Arcee's report, she had forced the conflict, even if Starscream landed the first blow. She could be hot-headed, led by her spark rather than her helm - but she was not a liar. When she stood before Optimus and recited the circumstances of Starscream's escape, she hadn't omitted any facts.

Bee sat at an empty table in the mess hall. He coaxed his processor to focus. If he let his concentration slip, his memory banks retrieved that freezeframe and plastered it over his HUD.

Megatron's hand print on Starscream's thigh.

Oh, everyone knew how the Warlord treated his second. It was one of those things that, during Wartime, made Bee uneasy to think about, and so he chose not too. They'd all seen the Seeker dragged off by a too-tight grip on the wing, clawing, shrieking for forgiveness, promising that he'd never betray his Master again...

But they weren't at war anymore. And, to Bee's knowledge, Starscream hadn't tried to extinguish Megatron's spark in a very long time. Pits, after Bee plunged his saber through the old Warlord's chassis, Screamer's first thought had been vengeance, not ascension. Shockwave had to scoop him up, fling him over one pauldron and drag him to safety so he didn't dive into battle against all the Autobots at once. It was a far greater display of loyalty than anyone had expected from the mech whose name, over the centuries, had become synonymous with  _treachery._

So why was Megatron still hurting him?

"Going to ignite that cube if you keep glaring at it!"

In contrast to his fellow Decepticons, who took care to avoid the Autobot contingent wherever possible, Knock Out had no qualms about pulling out the chair next to Bumblebee and plopping down.

"Oh dear, that's some scowl. Care to share your troubles? Tell the doctor what's eating your piping?" He frowned at Bee's untouched meal. "Sore fuel tank?"

"No. I'm... I'm fine." This time last astral-year, he and Knock Out would rather have ripped out each other's throat-tubing rather than swapped conversation. But, as Knock Out liked to say whenever an Autobot brought up his past, he'd never had the best role models.

"Ah!" The medic creaked back on his chair, kicking his pedes up to rest on the bench opposite. "A matter of the spark then. Should you wish to relieve yourself of this torment, I consider myself quite the Agony Aunt."

"No, you're just nosy. And - Agony Aunt? Isn't that a human reference?"

"Very astute. Surprised?"

Bee shrugged, peeling back the transparent lid of his cube and taking his first sulky sip. "I just thought you Cons were above that, is all."

Knock Out took no offence - but then again, he never did, unless you scratched his paintwork. "Ha! Oh, no. Screamer and Megs were hardly out to  _befriend humanity_ , and all that twaddle. But I found myself quite enamoured with their culture. Fascinating little things." He admired the stylised flames on his arms. "...And with quite  _exquisite_ taste in land-based vehicles, as I'm sure you'll agree."

"So you liked them," Bee said. "Just not enough to stop Megatron killing them?"

That earned him a snort. "Of course not. I value my own spark. Don't get me wrong - if I thought your lot were in with a chance of winning, back in the olden days, I'd have gotten away from that mad tyrant at the first opportunity."

"Megatron?"

"Starscream! That glitch was always nagging at me.  _Attend to your duties, Knock Out. Don't go out racing the fleshies, Knock Out. Knock Out, stop buffing yourself and listen to me when I'm ranting..._ " Despite the words, a small smile had crept onto the medic's face.

Bee smirked into his cube. "Sounds like you guys were good friends."

"Friends! Pah. Breakdown - now  _there_ was a good friend..." Knock Out's voice trailed away.

Bee didn't push. Breakdown's demise had come as a shock to them all.

Luckily, Knock Out took the opportunity to steer the subject back to his elusive Air Commander. "But as for Starscream? I honestly have no idea. There was this one incident with zombie drones -"

Bee held up a hand. "Zombie what-nows?" Hadn't Knock Out mentioned something about a misfired experiment robbing the Decepticon army of their infantry?

"Long story," said Knock Out, too quickly. That'd be one to quiz him on later, preferably after feeding him high-grade to loosen his lips. "Anyway. We both thought we were for it, and the Commander was actually quite  _pleasant_ to me. Cordial, almost! He said it had been an honor!" That smile was back again. Then it collapsed. "Of course, he tried to pin the whole business on me not five seconds later. But as for friendship - I have no idea. I suspect he might've seen me in such a light, if only because he didn't have anyone else to whine at."

That news wasn't exactly surprising. Starscream didn't come across as the most easygoing guy.

"Wouldn't mind getting to know him a bit better," Knock Out continued, lazily swirling the last dregs of his cube. "If he ever loosens up that tight aft. Most of our previous conversations were held in the medbay."

"Oh, yeah." Bumblebee chuckled. "Like when Optimus shot off his arm after he tried to resurrect Skyquake? That was funny."

"What? Oh,  _that._ That was a long time ago." Knock Out shook his helm. "Don't get ahead of yourself. You Autobots might've ploughed through our drones by the dozen, but Megatron put Screamer on my gurney far more than you did. Rumor had it, he made him live up to his name..."

Bee settled back on his chair, processing that. The image of that hand print flashed at the front of his HUD again.

"Old news," Knock Out continued. He drained his cube and sprung up, brushing imaginary dust from his hubcaps. "All happy families, right? Now, I don't know about you, but my wheels are aching for a spin. What say we head out on a patrol? You, me, Smokescreen..."

"A race, you mean?" Still, Bee managed a grin.

Knock Out returned it. "Just don't let Ultra Magnus catch you saying that. Come on, bottoms up. You'll need energy - Doctor's orders. Finish your cube and let's get out of here. We'll grab Smokescreen on the way."

Bee could sit here and ruminate over Starscream's well-being. Maybe even  _do_ something about it. Or he could head out on the open road and show off his handbrake turns. He knew which option he'd prefer.

He also knew which option Optimus would pick. But following in their great leader's footsteps got  _tiring_. Sometimes, even the best mechs needed a break.

Bee finished his cube. He tossed the empty packaging into the recycler and trailed after Knock Out, shooting Arcee - sipping her own cube by the door - a conspiratorial wink.

The hand print didn't flash up on his HUD again for quite some time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Please leave comments! I will discontinue this fic if I don't get any feedback. Don't just be an empty hit!**


	2. New Beginnings

 

The race went well - a good distraction. Smokescreen won. Bumblebee, not wanting to mislead Magnus more than necessary, had decided to scan the area for energon deposits while they were moving, which cost him his attention and almost sent him headfirst into an outcrop. Knock Out, on the other hand, had forfeited when their track took them over rougher terrain, pleading his finish.

"Of course," he was saying to Smokescreen, as they trudged back into the  _Nemesis_. "I could've made you eat my exhaust if I'd  _really_ put my mind to it."

"He's far too young," said Arcee, leaning on the support strut beside the  _Nemesis_  airlock, arms folded over her chest. Bee wondered how long she'd been waiting for them. While Knock Out leered and Smokescreen sputtered, faceplates heating to a luminous pink, Bee cast his teammate an awkward grimace.

"Um. Did Ultra Magnus ask -"

"Why you were  _scouting for enegron_ on a nice, long circuit road that we've driven over ten times before? Mm-hm."

"Did you tell him -"

"That you had picked up a dodgy signal, suspected it to be a misfire of the damaged communications relay, but went to check anyway, out of the kindness of your spark? Yup."

Bee held out a fist; Arcee bumped it. "You're the best. And I  _did_ scan, for the record."

"Had the energon-fairies been?"

"Nope. Same as the last ten times."

"You know," said Knock Out, slowly. "We  _do_ have an Energon Seeker aboard. And, somewhat tenuously, on our side."

Arcee's faceplates shuttered. She stepped away from Bee, into the shadow cast by the old 'Con ship. "We don't need his help."

"He's got a point," added Smokescreen, although he cast Arcee several nervous looks. "We  _are_  running low on High-grade..."

Arcee glared. "You're hardly old enough to be  _drinking_ high-grade."

Bee hid his smile. It felt good, to not be the team-baby anymore. He loved Arcee, but having her big-sisterly affections diverted onto another mech came as quite the relief.

"If we make Starscream help us scout energon," he reasoned, before they could get off-topic, "it'll keep him off the ship. Imagine it - you could go for  _days_ without seeing stiletto or aileron of him."

Arcee snorted. "Glitch hides in his quarters most of the time, anyway."

Ah. There was that horrible hand-print, again. Bee swallowed, hard.

Arcee frowned. "Bee? You alright?"

"Fine." Worried. Concerned. He'd swallowed a lead ball of suspicion, and it was leaking its noxious residue into his tank. Perhaps, rather than gathering everyone else's opinion of the Seeker, he ought to talk to him himself. "I'll see what I can sort out with regard to scouting missions."

"You're braver than I am." Knock Out shuddered. "You couldn't pay me to go into the same room as Megatron, even if he  _has_ turned to the good side. For a start, that new paint job is  _hideous._ "

Smokescreen nodded along. "It'll take  _vorns_ of buffing to get him silver again."

"Which I do not intend to volunteer for! Come on. I promised Ratchet I'd help him tally medbay surplus, and we could use an extra set of servos."

Smokescreen's face fell. "Aw! Why do I have to help?"

"The more, the merrier?"

"Your human loan-phrases don't charm me."

"Er... Because if you're there, Ratchet has another target to throw wrenches at?"

"I appreciate the honesty, but still a pass."

Knock Out ex-vented. "Ugh. I've stashed some high-grade in my quarters. Help me, and you get a cube."

Smokescreen's optics brightened. "Hell yes!" He caught Arcee's glare. "Uh. I mean. Hell no. Temperance and moderation and whatnot. Ahem. I'll be going to my quarters now."

"Suit yourself," grumbled Knock Out. They parted, setting off in different directions, down the long, winding central corridor.

"You know," said Bee, into the ensuing silence, "Smokescreen's gonna double back as soon as he's out of your optic-sight and go help Knock Out?"

Arcee's smile spread. She gave her engine a pleased little  _vrum_. "I'm counting on it. We taught that kid well."

"Everything we know." Bee made to step past her, headed for the elevators at the back of the deck, which would take him to the floors the Decepticons had claimed as their own. Arcee caught his arm.

"Bee. You shouldn't go down there alone."

Bee rubbed the back of his helm. "Eh, I'll be fine. You heard Megatron. He wants this. It's for the best."

"The day I trust Megatron is the day I offline."

"Maybe so. But still, if we both show up, it'll look like a threat. That way there's  _more_ of a chance of violence, right? And..." Bee trailed off. Arcee's faceplates were grim.

"And Optimus was the only one to ever hold his own against Megatron - and that was before he got his upgrade, courtesy of the Chaos-Bringer. Even if all of us went down together, he'd still string our sparks out to dry."

"Hey now," Bee chided. He was trying to sound light-sparked, but it didn't quite make it into his voice. "You're talking to the Scout who off-lined the old rustbucket."

"And how well did that stick?" Bee had no answer. Arcee glowered up at him. "Can you see why I didn't like this plan, now?"

"I know, I know. I just... Optimus..."

Arcee's scowl softened, just a little. "Yeah." She released his arm, stepping back. "Just... be careful?"

Bee flashed her a grin. "When am I not?"

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

That grin soon faded, as he made his way below-decks. During the crash, the  _Nemesis_ had carved a furrow in the bedrock around the edge of the well. A considerable portion of the ship was now underground. There might not be windows on board, but even so, Bee was uncomfortably aware of the earth pressing in around him as he made his way into the warship's bowel. Claustrophobic, heavy. Or maybe that was just his own nervousness, at having taken this task on.

Shadows clustered around Bee, creeping up the halls behind him and lurking in wait around every corner. This wasn't metaphorical; the lights on this level were motion-sensitive, and they flicked on as he passed beneath, winking quickly away once he'd passed.

A few of them flickered. They needed more energon, stat.

He paused before the door of the dormitory that Megatron and Starscream had assigned themselves, on the lowest subterranean level. To his knowledge, so far, neither had left the ship. Irritation prickled Bee's mesh.

Did they think themselves above the Autobots? Were they unwilling to contribute to the rebuilding efforts, if it involved getting their servos dirty, working like a drone?

Well, he'd just have to inform them that such attitudes weren't acceptable, if they wanted this truce to last.

Rebuilding Cybertron was such an insurmountable project that Bee's tanks knotted just thinking about it. But, as Knock Out said,  _the more the merrier._  Every mech had to do their time: logging shifts at the construction site, hauling masonry with the drones. Megatron and Starscream wouldn't be exempt, no matter which faction's crest they wore branded on their chest.

With that in mind, Bee raised his fist and delivered a knock.

"Enter."

No mistaking those deep, brassy vocals. Megatron.

Bee clamped down on his instinctive shudder. He'd killed Megatron once, after all. If needs be, he could do it again. Whatever Arcee said.

He nudged the panel to the left of the door. It opened in a rush of recycled air. And -

There were the two most infamous mechs in the galaxy. Sat side by side on chairs that had not been designed to hold them, in a room built to house a hundred drones. They both glanced up when Bumblebee entered, but neither stood. Megatron, because he'd bash his helm on the low ceiling. Starscream - well. He was either copying Megatron, or just being rude.

"Um," said Bee. "Hi."

He couldn't help but look around. The mechs themselves weren't what unnerved him - there was nothing threatening in their postures. It was the creepy  _domesticity_ of the scene. Frag, they were both reading datapads!

Starscream had crossed his fragile-looking legs one atop the other, pedes propped on the nearest clone-berth. Megatron, in contrast, dwarfed his chair entirely, vast silver thighs hanging over each side. You couldn't see it, when you looked at him head-on. It was like he was holding a squat, with his knees up around his ears. His datapad looked tiny as a sparkling's toy, tucked within that giant hand.

Bee fought back the sudden, hysterical urge to laugh.

"Yes," Megatron growled. "You wanted something?"

"Y-yes." He'd wanted something - what had he wanted? Oh right, yes. "Can I borrow Starscream? Um. Please?"

Megatron shot him a fangy smile. Bee noticed, not for the first time, that his optics were far sharper than his scarred, brawlers' face would have you believe. "A stutter! What happened to the brave scout who demanded I follow his rule?"

"No - no rule. We're not ruling anyone here." He was starting to wish he'd taken Arcee up on her offer of an escort. It was easier to keep your helm on straight when you had another mech in your corner. Right now it was two against one.

"Shame," drawled Starscream. "We could, you know. Establish ourselves as the ruling government before the first refugees land..." He shrugged at the mutual glares that drilled into him, purple and blue. "I'm just  _saying._ Scrap, can't a mech make a joke?"

"Even by your standards, that wasn't funny." Megatron pinned Starscream with his sneer for a few seconds longer. That was all it took. The skinny Seeker wilted, his wings drooping down his back in a clear gesture of submission, trembling ever-so-faintly against the back of his chair. 

Bee cleared his throat, suddenly uncomfortable. "Megatron..."

"You can have the Seeker, if he wants to go." The warlord opened his datapad again, resting it on one vast knee. The hand he used to turn the holographic page was broader across than Starscream's tiny waist. "He's a free mech."

Starscream looked offended at the insinuation. "But Master -"

"I've told you, Starscream. You don't call me that. Not anymore, not outside of -" Megatron cut himself off. His optics flicked to Bee, then back to the lines of text. Bee tilted his helm at them. He could've sworn he recognized the swooping, fragmented lines of old-Iaconian poetry. "Go. You fuss incessantly when you can't spread your wings."

That made Bee's brows angle together. Why would any Seeker voluntarily ground themselves? "It's not like we said you weren't allowed to fly."

Starscream shot him his usual withering look, which rolled  _are you really that stupid,_ and  _of course you are, groundpounder_ into one, without a need for words. "Oh, my apologies. So I was supposed to blast off and  _not_ expect a rocket through my tailerons?"

"Uh... yeah? Like, if you'd told us where you headed, first?"

Starscream drew himself up, removing his pedes from the bed. it didn't look slept in - in fact, it was totally trashed, bare to its girders. And there, further down the hall - visible if Bee pushed up on his toes, peering past Megatron's humongous shoulder-stacks... Was that a nest? Filled with the filleted remains of the vehicons' meagre bedding?

It looked large enough for two. Even when one of those was a gigantic ex-Kaonite gladiator.

Starscream opened his mouth, thereby pulling Bee's attention away from his furnishings. "I refuse to clear every action with your troops! Do you also need to know when I visit the wash-racks? The energon-purifier? The waste-room?"

 _The medbay at midnight,_  Bumblebee filled in, within the privacy of his head.

"Starscream." Megatron gripped Starscream's arm, effortlessly hoisting him upright, while he himself remained seated. "We talked about this. There will have to be concessions..."

"Humiliations!"

"...On  _both_ sides." Megatron raised his optics to Bumblebee. "He's all yours. Go."

For someone who'd just called Starscream a  _free mech,_ he certainly didn't leave him much of a choice. Still, Starscream only put up token resistance, grumbling something about  _Primus-damned law-loving Autobots_ that Bee chose to ignore. Megatron rolled his optics in response. For a moment, this little slice of the world they'd carved out for themselves looked very almost  _cosy._

Then Bee noticed the gashes that slit the Seeker's shoulder-guards. The sort that could only be made by claws.

His spark sunk. The mark on Starscream's thigh was gone - he'd felt a little awkward about looking for it, and had averted his optics to neutral territory as soon as he'd ascertained its absence. But this...

His sharp intake didn't escape notice. Starscream's optics widened. His own talons - too small to be the culprits - shot up, as if to guard the wound from sight. Then, slowly, they lowered again.

"N-nothing to fret over, I assure you. I merely, um, fell down some stairs..."

His voice trickled to silence. It settled over them like a fresh coat of snow, stifling and heavy, chilling Bee to his core.

There were no stairs on the  _Nemesis._

Starscream was first to crack under the pressure. "It's nothing! It certainly won't impede my flight capabilities - that  _is_ what you wanted me for, right?"

Bee turned away. His spark throbbed, so hard he could hear the echo in his audials.  _Ba-dum-dum, ba-dum-dum, ba-dum-dum._ An eternal, triplicate beat. "Report to Knock Out before you meet me on the flight deck."

Starscream sneered. His mocking "Yes, sir," followed Bee to the exit.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Starscream showed up a breem after Bee reached the top deck. He hopped out of the elevator behind him, wings fluttering, his usual pomp returning as he gazed out at the great, reddening expanse of the Cybertronian sky.

"See?" He ran his talons over his pauldron, showing how the light slid greasily off smooth, gunmetal-grey steel. "Just cosmetic. Nothing to concern yourself with. Three kliks with a buffer and it's gone."

He sounded weirdly disappointed, about that.

"That's... uh. That's good." Should Bee address the sick fear in his tank? Interrogate Starscream outright? No; that was a poor idea. The 'Con was prickly - Bee was guaranteed a side-swipe of those talons. He'd be lucky if the slagger didn't activate his internal weaponry.

 

(Ratchet had pulled him aside and quietly enquired whether they ought to make Megatron and Starscream off-line their weapons systems.)

(Bee disagreed. This truce required trust on both sides, and there were enough unknown factions out there – the Insecticons, Airachnid, the Predacons, those refugees currently making the journey back from where they'd established a miniature commune on one of the moons of Alpha Centauri-IV – that they all needed to keep up their guard.)

 

Starscream had little patience for Bee's wandering processor. "Well?" he snapped. "Why did you call me here? It can't just have been to watch the sunset."

Bee shuddered. "Definitely not."

"Hmph. Shame." Then, at Bee's terrified expression: "Calm your engines, Autobot. That was another _joke._ You're not my type."

Bee shuddered harder. "Yeah, it's mutual! Can we please get on with the mission?"

Starscream cocked a hip and planted a hand upon it. If he'd had hair, he might've flipped it (yeah, yeah; Bee had watched too many human movies). "It might help if you told me what this mission _was._ "

"Energon. Seeking energon. You're a Seeker." Bee, still flustered, waved vaguely at the faraway curve of Iacon's ruins, squatting on the horizon like an ugly obsidian toad. "Seek!"

Starscream's wings dipped. "You want to send me out there _alone_?"

"What's the big deal? We've all done solo patrols." Bee glanced at Starscream from the corner of his eye. "Don't tell me the big mean Decepticon’s _scared._ "

"What? Scared - of course I'm not - _psh!_ I am merely _expressing a reluctance_ to venture out into the great unknown when there are still _Predacons_ loose!"

Another rattle of the wings. They were remarkably expressive, far more than Bee's own doors.

Seekers had starred in the fantasies of many dirt-chewing bots since long before the war. The wings were usually the main feature – but watching Starscream, all Bee could think about was how they looked liable to smack anyone who stood too close when the mech got excited. He wondered whether Megatron had ever sported scrapes of such an origin, and had to turn to one side to hide his smirk.

"Yeah, I can see why you're worried. You and them don't exactly see eye-to-eye."

"Of course not. My helm barely comes up to Predaking's waist."

"It’s a human expression." Bee surveyed the wastes. "Can you tell me which direction we should search in, at least?"

"Not unless I'm in vehicular mode." Starscream strutted to the edge, fearless in the face of the drop. "Why did you think I resorted to scrabbling about and begging for assistance after losing my alt-mode back on Earth? My sensors perform optimally while airborne." He surveyed the ruddy globs of cloud that scudded across the horizon. "Are you sure you wanted to head out on a patrol right now? Night approaches, and should I locate a source, we would have to perform the extraction after dark."

Damn. He raised a good point. Still, this gave Bee time to clear things with Ultra Magnus. "Sure. Meet me after breakfast in the morning."

Starscream thinned his optics. "You might've convinced my Master to let me aide you in your _schemes,_ Scout. But do not presume to order me about."

Bee held up his hands. Starscream's phrasing made him more than a little uncomfortable. As if the mech wasn't allowed to lift a talon without Megatron's say-so. "Uh, how about this? If you want us to keep supplying the energon purifiers, meet me after breakfast tomorrow morning." Starscream waited. " _Please._ "

"Better." The Seeker stepped away from the plummet. His wings flapped behind him, as if trying to preserve the breeze for as long as they could. "It appears that Prime of yours did teach you _some_ manners."

"And morals," said Bee before he could stop himself.

Starscream treated him to a smirk – one of those slow, silky ones that looked like they'd been practised in the mirror. "More fool him."

Bee focused on Starscream’s claws. He had to stop himself imagining how they’d plunged through Cliffjumper’s chest armour, closing on the precious, fragile spark within. It was a struggle to keep a steady voice. "You heading back inside?"

"If that is what you insist upon." Starscream's faceplates betrayed nothing. His wings were another matter; they drooped in a way that reminded Bee far too much of puppy-ears, from the vids Raf had shown him back on Earth.

Scrap. Starscream was a tricksy aft-hole, a master-manipulator. He could be playing Bee for all he was worth. But at the same time, Bee remembered how grouchy he’d gotten when _he_ couldn’t transform…

Bee supposed he could be lenient. Just this once.

"We're not stopping you flying. Go on." He waved. "Knock yourself out."

"Another human colloquium, I suppose. I'll pass on that. Knock Out’s sarcasm grows quite intolerable when you visit him more than once in the same cycle."

Bumblebee could believe it. "I’m sure. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, then. And Starscream?"

"Yes?"

"Please, no more jokes. You're really bad at them."

"Ugh," muttered Starscream. "You're about as much fun as my Master."

He turned his back to the edge. Before Bee’s optics had chance to widen, Starscream jumped, tucked, flipped and transformed, so smoothly it was as if he moved in slow-motion. It was one of those ridiculously graceful tricks that Seekers spent decades perfecting for no other reason than it looked cool. Bee was comfortable enough in his groundpounding ways to admit that it was, perhaps, a little awesome.

Starscream ignited his jet with a red-hot roar. He soared away, spiralling vertically upwards, twin contrails winding behind him like the double-helix in human DNA.

"Show off!" Bee called after him. He didn't stay to give Screamer an audience. It would only egg him on.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

"This is a terrible idea."

"Ultra Magnus, come on! They can't just sit in our basement and rust!"

"Why not?" Ratchet was putting the last buffs on Ultra Magnus's finish - still a little scratched, after his scrapping at the Predacons' claws. "It seems like a perfectly viable solution to me."

"He doesn't mean that," Knock Out assured Bee.

Ratchet levelled the buffer at him in warning. "Careful. I've still half a mind to send you down there to keep our resident Warlord and his pet Seeker company."

Knock Out's porcelain-painted faceplate couldn't exactly get _paler_ , but his optics were plenty wide when he turned between Magnus and Bee. "No - you can't let him! Screamer still hasn't forgiven me for a certain _incident_ involving the Immobilizer being introduced to his head at speed -"

"We haven't forgiven you for it either," said Bee. "As you broke it."

"Yes, but - look. You can't toss me in with my old cronies. I've _changed._ " He gestured to his new, blue optics. "Even made the color switch! _Despite_ the fact that it doesn't complement my aesthetic! You have to recognize my sacrifices for the Autobot cause!"

Ultra Magnus pointedly took the buffer from Ratchet's servos and began seeing to himself. Ratchet hardly noticed. He rounded on Knock Out, one hand on each broad hip.

"Your place in my medbay is secure, so long as you stop sneaking out on your ridiculous racing excursions! What use is a medical assistant who only shows up to the medbay to borrow the buffer and steal field kits?"

Bee flinched.

Luckily, Knock Out was too busy rising to meet Ratchet's wrath to call him out on it. "I didn't _steal_ it! As I have told you before! Why would I require such a thing? My own field kit is far from depleted, and -"

"Please," said Magnus. "You're giving me a helm-ache. Doubtless, one of us merely forgot to log the kit out."

Ratchet raised a brow. "Not like you to slack on enforcing legislation."

"And when I find out who," Magnus continued, flexing his tripod-hand for a better grip on the buffer. "I will make them tally every item in the ship's subspace."

Ah. Perhaps it was best not to indict Starscream, after all. Bee dreaded the damage the Seeker might cause if shut in the bowels of the _Nemesis_ with only busy-work to occupy his razor-sharp talons.

"I think I'd rather stomach the company of Megatron and Starscream," he said.

Knock Out snorted. "Speak for yourself. It's sickening, how they treat each other."

Judging by Starscream's poorly-concealed injuries, Bee would have to agree. Still, if he got a bit closer to the Con - as much as that thought rankled, Cliff’s absence weighing heavy on his mind - perhaps it would put Bee in a better position to put a stop to Megatron's abuse?

"Nauseating," Knock Out continued.

Bee was impressed. He hadn't thought the red muscle-car had this much capacity for empathy.

"I'll head down and get some recharge," he told Ratchet, tipping Ultra Magnus a nod. "See you tomorrow."

"Like an old bon-" The door whooshed shut, cutting Knock Out's final comment in twain.

Bee headed for his berth, stretching out his gears and wondering how he was going to stand a whole day of Starscream's snipes without bringing his blasters online. Patience, he told himself. Lots of saintly, Prime-like patience.

And, of course, the promise of replete high-grade stocks upon their return.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Thank you so much for every click of that kudos button and every comment! You guys are ace. Don't worry, Bee/Starscream is definitely not endgame - Starscream's just messing with him. Next up: Starscream and Bee take a road trip! I decided to smush the chapters together, as I prefer reading slightly longer chapters. More soon!**


	3. Hunting Partners

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Happy Christmas, for all who celebrate it!**

Starscream met Bumblebee at the _Nemesis's_ main airlock. He walked over, faceplate sour as ever.

Well. _Limped,_ would be more accurate. Bee was revved up from his morning energon cube and eager to be underway. Still, when he laid optics on Starscream, his enthusiasm drained as if a pit had opened in his tanks.

"Primus!”

“Flattering,” grated the Con. “But no. I’m afraid not.”

Bee wasn’t listening. “What the – what did Megatron…?”

Starscream sniffed. "It seems Ultra Magnus took your _idea_ of integration to spark. He has requested that my dear Master aid that overgrown wrecker and his bombastic companion -"

"Bulkhead," Bee managed. His optics were still glued to Starscream's mangled plates. "Their names are Bulkhead and Wheeljack."

"Whatever. The Mighty Megatron has been sent to serve as a construction worker!" He clasped his pointy servos. "The irony would be delicious, if only he wasn't so _cheerful_ about it."

"Megatron, cheerful?" Bee couldn't imagine such a thing. Much like he couldn’t understand why Megatron would use this as a reason to make Starscream his punching bag. Still, perhaps the Warlord didn’t need an excuse. He just wanted something to hurt. Somebot smaller than him, weaker. Somebot who had nowhere else to go.

Starscream raised his chin, wings flicking in a superior sort of way. "You wouldn’t be able to tell. It takes a degree of familiarity to read him, one I don’t expect you Autobots to cultivate any time soon. Trust me, it'll do him good to put all that brute strength to use. He… tires of reading _poetry_."

He sounded almost fond _._ Of the mech who’d beaten him.

"That's great," Bee heard himself saying, faintly. "Um. Are you safe to fly?"

"Scrap." Starscream's face fell. "I thought the nanite gel had taken care of those."

Bee could see it, if he squinted. A slimy shimmer, glittering with incalculable tiny robotic germs. Starscream had slathered it over the abrasions, as if fixing the injury meant fixing the problem.

His upset must show. Starscream fidgeted. "What? You have something to say?"

"You didn't visit the medics?"

"You said to meet you _after breakfast_ , not _before lunch_." Starscream scowled at the scuffs on his knee spikes. From kneeling, Bee's processor supplied. Matching ones adorned his forearms. Bee worked out how he could've acquired both sets at once, and got that twisty ache in his tank that hit before a purge. "Anyway, I couldn't stomach Knock Out's taunting. It was bad enough when I had to submit to a buffing yesterday!"

Knock Out _could_ be a bit abrasive. A speak-his-own-spark kind of mech, that was for sure. Still, Bee was disappointed in him. It was one thing to tease your co-workers about a few bumps and sprains, but to scare an abuse victim away from treatment?

"That's not right," he tried. "You shouldn't... you shouldn't be made to feel ashamed."

Starscream quirked a brow. "That's a more Libertine attitude than I expected to hear from Prime's aft-licker."

"What? I – I wasn’t!"

"Of course not. Aft-licking's far too risque. It's all-lights-off, missionary-of-Primus style with you Autobots."

Bee's plating clamped tight to his protoform. "Don't you say anything like that about me and Optimus. Not ever again."

Starscream stepped away from him, servos up, wings down. It was gratifying, until Bee recalled that this was how he always used to cringe around Megatron. Like he was stuck in a small space with an angry beast. "Don't stress your spark, Scout. It was only a joke."

Bee sighed. He took care to keep his body language restrained, settling on his back pede, arms by his sides rather than crossed across his chest. “What did I tell you about those?"

“Ugh. Very well then. Silence it is."

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

If this was how Megatron treated Starscream in a _good_ mood, Bee shuddered to think of what Knock Out must've patched together, back when Screamer was regularly stabbing the big guy in the back. At the very least, he didn't wear enough paint to have to worry about a re-apply.

 _Probably because this happens every other cycle,_ thought Bee. The sick churn in his tank worsened. He wondered whether he ought to pull over.

"Permission to speak?" came the sarcastic drawl from above. Starscream was coasting along, making the velocity look effortless. Bee didn't want to admit how much their pace was punishing his engines.

"Granted."

"How _generous._ "

"Do you have a point, or did you just want to hear your own voice?"

Starscream sniffed. "I think I preferred you when you only spoke binary."

Bee ground his denta, biting back on the harsh reply. "Well," he said, quieter. "I'm not the only one who got hurt by that old Rustbucket."

_The only difference is, he's still hurting you._

"Please," said Starscream, with malicious glee. "Say that to his face. I would love to watch him rip you limb from limb, tearing your pathetic alliance asunder.”

Bee could've singed Starscream’s tailerons, for that. Arcee would've done, if she was in his place. But knowing what he did – the scuffs, the hand-prints, their disturbingly intimate nature – Bee couldn't bring himself to rise to the bait.

 _There are many reasons a bot lashes out,_ he told himself. _Sometimes they're a slagger. And sometimes, they're just hurting._

"I told you to stop joking," he said, and was rewarded with the high bark of the Seeker's laugh.

"What I was _trying_ to say before our tangent, was that my sensors are picking up on a deposit, three kliks to the west. Why don't we take a garner?"

"Sounds good." Bee spun his wheel.

"Not going to ask for a race? I know what you're like, always stealing my medic."

"Our medic, Starscream." And pits no, Bumblebee wasn't racing. He'd burst a cylinder if he pushed his speedo anymore.

Starscream ruffled his wings. "Whatever."

"Anyway," Bee continued, "Knock Out tells me you're far too uptight to be interested in such things. Y'know. Air Commander duties, and all."

"Well, I have to be, around him! Give that mech an inch and he'll take a whole lightyear." A beat. "And I'm not an Air Commander anymore. You've made that clear. No one gets to shout orders on your ship – with your exception, of course."

Bee didn't want an argument. "I'll race you," he said, mostly to shut him up. "But not all the way there." If he tried, he'd be so low on energon that he'd have to synthesize a cube there and then. "You said you wanted to stretch your wings, right? I bet you can't fly there and back again before I get halfway."

"Quarter way. Let's give you a fighting chance."

"Your pride will be your undoing."

"Ugh." Starscream performed a mid-air shudder. "Don't say things like that. It's like your Prime is watching over us."

"Yeah," said Bee, a little quieter. "I sure hope he is."

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Starscream won. By quite a margin.

Bee bore the jeering in stoic silence. This was the right move, as Starscream soon got bored of it.

He'd seen the Con fly before. But there was something different about watching Starscream cut through the air on a milk-run, maxing his thrusters for the sheer joy of acceleration, as opposed to when he was strafing you from behind cloud-cover. He seemed brighter. Lighter.

 _Still a monster,_ Bee reminded himself. He always would be. Change of spark or otherwise, nothing could wash the spilled energon from this mech's servos.

They reached the glowing crack in Cybertron's crust. Starscream transformed with a neat flip and a smile. Bee found his optics drawn to those horrible, telling scuffs on his knees and elbows.

 _How can you be so happy,_ he wanted to demand. _How can you not be screaming?_

But maybe Starscream _was_ crying, on the inside. Maybe that grin was part of an act, empty bravado.

Starscream landed, neat as a ballerina. He cocked his hip, quirked a grin. He was a very, very good actor.

"Well?" he asked. "Impressed?"

Megatron rarely dished out praise, Bee knew that much. He fought off his initial instinct to downplay any awe. Instead, he met Starscream's optics and said, with as much warmth as he could muster for Cliffjumper's killer: "Very."

Starscream's brows pinched together. Before Bee could wonder whether he'd misjudged, Starscream shook his helm and got to business.

"I'm an Energon Seeker. Of course I'm good at my job."

 _Then why brag about it?_ Bee didn't ask. Starscream-logic seemed to exist a little out-of-kilter with the rest of reality.

"Now, have your _chums_ aboard the _Nemesis_ send a groundbridge to our coordinates. You will mine the energon yourselves, as the vehicons are otherwise employed." Bee nodded, reaching for his comm. That only made Starscream frown harder. "What, no protest? I thought that might’ve been a little _imperative_ for your tastes."

"You don't have to test me, Starscream." Bee pushed the button under his jaw. "You’re not going to push me away.”

"Um," said Starscream. Then the static crackled, and Bee was through.

"What's going on?" Arcee demanded. "Did he attack you? Bee, do you need medical attention?"

"No, no. No one's attacking anyone. We found the energon, Arcee!"

Silence from the other end of the line.

"Not even a little celebration?"

" _We_ , Bee?"

Ah. Bumblebee sighed, shooting Starscream an apologetic glance. He received an optic-roll in return. "Me and Starscream found it."

"Starscream and _I,_ " came the faint twang of Ultra Magnus's voice in the background. Bee sucked on his cheek mesh until he stopped smirking.

"Now that you've corrected my grammar, can you please send a groundbridge? Shame to lug all the mining equipment out here by wheel."

He rattled off the coordinates. The groundbridge flurried to life: a swirling turquoise gyre, illuminated with flecks of interdimensional antimatter. Arcee was first through, gun out. She scoped the scene, selected the hostile, and trained her weapon accordingly. Starscream did his best to cram his lanky form behind Bee.

Bee sighed. He marched up to Arcee and shoved her barrel to one side.

"Thank you, Bumblebee and Starscream," he said, as she wasn’t going to. "Now we don't have to worry about starving. We're grateful for all your hard work."

Arcee’s gun transformed back into a servo. In lieu of an actual plasma bolt, she shot Starscream with a sizzler of a glare. "We weren't in danger of _starvation._ Just of running out of high grade."

"A travesty in its own right!" That was Knock Out, hopping through the portal. His eyes alighted on Starscream. More specifically, on the healing patches that graced his limbs. "Seriously? _Again?_ "

Starscream bared his denta. "Don't you dare say -"

"I told you so!"

"Aft-hole."

The nanites were doing their job, just not to the degree that a medic's honed eye wouldn't notice. The scrapes certainly wouldn't heal if Starscream kept picking at them. Bee tugged Starscream's wrist away without really thinking about it.

He only realized he'd broken an unspoken code when he found all three of them giving him weirded-out looks. He'd just willingly touched a Decepticon. And not to punch him in the faceplate, either.

Bee jerked back. A stupid, sparkling-like part of him wanted to wipe his hand on his plating, but he suspected Starscream would take offence.

"Don't touch," he told Starscream, at a higher pitch than usual. "You'll just make them worse."

"I have to agree with Bumblebee," said Knock Out, although his eyebrows had disappeared under the ridges of his helmet, what with how high they'd risen. "As your physician -"

"As _your_ Commander -"

" _Ex-_ Commander -"

"No need to rub it in!"

Arcee ex-vented, rubbing the chevron at the centre of her forehead. "I'll go get the mining drill," she said. “It’ll be loud enough that I can’t hear you idiots bickering.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Now the All-Spark had been restored, Cybertron would start generating its own sources of energon again. This particular seam was a leftover from the pre-Exodus era. No doubt it had once been under guard – Autobot, Decepticon, neutral or otherwise. It was deep enough to last a vorn, and by the time they'd ploughed through it, more should've sprung into existence, crystallizing from the planet's metal crust.

 _The well of life,_  Optimus might've said, accompanied by one of his rare, quiet smiles.  _Always giving._

And right now, the Autobots were making the most of it.

Smokescreen slammed the cube on the table before Bumblebee. "High grade or the highway, mech!"

Bee leaned back on his chair. "Primus. It was just one deposit. Is this really a reason to party?"

Smokescreen looked offended. “There’s  _always_ a reason to party.”

"Careful, Bee." Knock Out leaned in from the other side, mouth by Bee’s audial. His voice was a velveteen rumble that seemed design to shiver Bee down to his protoform. "You're starting to sound like Ultra Magnus."

That settled that. Bumblebee glared at the pair of them, cracked the seal, raised the cube to his lips and started to chug.

Arcee, left in charge of supervising this soiree, propped her pointy chin on her palms. "This’ll be a short night,” she declared. “At this pace, you’ll all be halfway to overcharge before it gets dark.”

“Why, Arcee! You underestimate us.” Knock Out slung an arm around Bee, making him slop his drink. “A bunch of young, virile mechs like ourselves? We can go all night.”

He threw in a wink for good measure, bumping Bee with his hip. Bee, who’d just managed to seal his lips more firmly on the rim of his cube, immediately splashed more energon over his chin.

"Flirt,” said Starscream, from the door. He sounded amused. “Don’t take him seriously, Scout. He’s like that with everymech.”

Bee broke the ensuing silence by choking on his mouthful. He cleared his intake with loud, racking coughs, while Smokescreen pounded him on the back and Knock Out laughed his aft off, having to prop one hand on the table for support.

"Careful, Scream" he wheezed, wiping a bead of diluted washer-fluid from the corner of his optics. "Best not fluster our Scout while he’s drinking. Don't want to offline another Auto-"

Smokescreen punched his shoulder. Bumblebee was grateful. If he hadn’t been otherwise engaged with hacking up his fuel tank, he'd have done exactly the same.

Knock Out clutched his new dent. "Do you realize what you’ve  _done?_ ”

"It’ll buff out. Now, for the love of Primus,  _shut up._ ”

“Oh, who died and made you Prime?”

Smokescreen just shook his helm. He gestured at Arcee. She’d leapt from her chair at the sound of Starscream’s vocalizer, and now stood glowering at the Seeker as if she smelled something rotten on the breeze.

Realization crawled over Knock Out's face. "Ah."

Starscream swallowed. He had been leaning on the doorframe – for how long, Bee didn’t want to imagine. Long enough to see him slop high grade down his front like a feeding sparkling, that was for sure. Now the 'Con slunk backwards, shoulders sinking, wings low, slipping into his usual wide-eyed, cornered-turbofox impression.

"I'll, uh - " He thumbed over his pauldrons. The scrimshaw of scratches on his knees had, by this point, fully sealed, smoothing back into oyster-gray steel. "I'll go..."

Knock Out scowled. “Like the Pit you will! Get back here!”

Bee stomped on Knock Out’s foot.

"Argh!  _Will everyone please stop denting me?_ I invited Screamer, okay? I thought he could do with a change of scenery, a bit of charge in his wires…” He met their disbelieving stares with a shrug. “What? It’s my expert medical opinion!"

Bee expected Arcee to argue back, maybe rustle up some choice descriptions of where Knock Out’s  _expert medical opinion_ might be shoved. Instead, she slumped, eyes dulling. “I'm going to berth."

"Wait!" Smokescreen lurched out of his seat. "Arcee!”

“It’s okay, Smoke. I need an early recharge, anyway.”

She trudged to the door. Starscream attempted to hop out of her way, but accidentally moved in the same direction as when she tried to step around him.

“Scrap, I –“

Arcee growled. She feinted to the other side. Starscream, eyes perfect, panicked circles, copied her.

“Oh, scrap! Not again! I swear I’m not doing this on purpose!”

They performed what Miko called 'the excuse me, after you' dance for a whole five seconds, Starscream's wings drawing higher and higher, a tiny whine of terror escaping his mouth.

Arcee lost patience. She gave the Seeker a hearty shove. Starscream clanged against the door frame. He released a wounded squawk, both hands raised in front of his face.

"Quit being so dramatic," Arcee snarled. “And get out of my way.”

High-grade fizzed, effervescent, on the back of Bee's tongue. As he studied Starscream's cringing posture – the fast rise and fall of his chest, the low rattle of his wings – the taste of it seemed to sour.

 _He's not scared of you,_ he wanted to snap at Arcee.  _He's scared of the memory – of Megatron._

But that wouldn’t be  _fair._ Arcee had every right to hate this mech. Bumblebee meant it when he said he didn't expect her to like Starscream, and he certainly wasn't going to force them all to hold hands and sing  _Glory to Primus_.

Still, Arcee didn’t take the opportunity to smelt Starscream’s faceplates. That was nice of her.

"Have your fun, 'Con,” she said. “Just know that if you hurt any of them, you'll be answering to me.” She cracked her knuckle joints. “And I’ll  _enjoy_ it."

Similar threats had been made to the 'Cons several times over the past Lunar-cycle, to varying degrees of sincerity and graphic detail. They ought to run off Starscream's wings by now, like the non-acidic rain on Earth. Still, he jerked out a nod.

Arcee returned it, optics icy-cold. “Glad we understand each other.” Then she was gone, the clank of her retreating pedes echoing through the deserted corridors.

Smokescreen folded his arms. “She shouldn't have to leave. That's not  _fair_."

Knock Out scoffed. "It's not like we're forcing her out the room. She wants to cling onto old grudges, that’s her problem.”

“Cliffjumper,” said Bumblebee, quietly, “isn’t  _an old grudge._  No more than Breakdown.”

At last, he’d pierced the medic’s flashy façade. Knock Out actually looked  _sad,_  for all of a second. Then he took another gulp of high-grade, as if to wash the taste of empathy from his mouth, and turned on their gatecrasher.

“Starscream, quit fluttering. You look like a moth."

Starscream's wings made another nervy twitch. "A... a what-now?"

"Earth-thing. Honestly. Would it have killed you to learn  _anything_ about the world we were supposed to be conquering?"

Starscream unfolded from the wall. "I wanted to  _rule over_ it, not  _learn about it._ "

"Bull-slag," said Knock Out. He spoke to Starscream so familiarly, Bee couldn't help but wonder how much guff their last talk had been, when Knock Out claimed the Seeker wasn’t anything close to a friend. "You used to be a scientist. Learning stuff is what you guys  _do._ "

"He did?" Smokescreen blinked in Starscream's direction. "You  _did?_ "

Starscream edged closer. His heels chimed delicately against the floor. He glanced behind him, as if expecting Arcee to rematerialize, hefting Megatron’s fusion cannon and hollering an old two-wheeler cry of war. 

According to Magnus, Megatron had removed the weapon from his arm of his own volition. It now rested against the doorjamb to his and Starscream's quarters like the galaxy's most macabre vase. What with how eagerly the old Warlord seemed to be throwing himself into peacetime, Bee wouldn't be surprised to find flowers growing out of it by the end of the solar-cycle. If Megatron could find any organic life compatible with Cybertron's atmosphere, of course.

Knock Out scooted out the fourth chair at their table. Starscream slid into it.

"The doctor is correct," he murmured. His low voice tickled at the bottom of its range. He sat between Knock Out and Smokescreen, opposite Bee. Slim pedes grazed his under the table – an accident, judging by Starscream's flinch. Bee moved away.

"Always figured you'd been flying around shooting things your whole life,” he said.

Starscream shot him a look of a toxicity that would rival impure energon. "Well, you would, wouldn't you? Typical groundpounder..."

"Woah, there!" Knock Out raised his servos. "Let's not restart the war over stereotypes.”

Bumblebee shrugged. He wasn’t old enough for that slur to hold any bite.

Still, he let Knock Out loop an arm over his shoulders. Just to keep him happy, of course. Nothing to do with how  _nice_ that voice felt, when it was rumbling against your carburettors. “Now, I don't know about you mechs, but I came here to have a good time."

"Smartest thing you've said all solar-cycle," said Smokescreen. He bore Knock Out’s retaliatory kick with dignity. “So, what’s going on? We getting over-charged or what?”

“Smartest thing  _you’ve_ said all solar-cycle,” Knock Out muttered. His face brightened. “And Starscream has some catching up to do.” 

Bee lounged back on his chair, swirling his high-grade, watching it slosh against the angular glass. Still, he couldn’t help but smile, as the doctor wrestled a cube into Starscream's servos (to eye-rolls and protests, but no outright  _no's_ ) _._

"You know what this party needs?" he asked, as Starscream took his first sip, wings giving a little flick at the taste. Pure, sweet high grade, of a better calibre than anything they'd synthesized from deposits on Earth.

"Enlighten us," drawled Knock Out.

Shrugging off his arm, Bee headed over to the loudspeaker system in the corner, intended for use when Megatron wanted to rally his troops. He drew out one of the leads, plugged it into a chest port, and let it suck out his cache of Raf, Miko and Jack's favorite tunes. "Some  _music,_  of course."

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

After that, things got a bit hazy.

Bee drunk another cube – then thought  _what the hell_ and made it three. A bad idea, but tomorrow’s hangover was tomorrow’s problem. Arcee had left several low-grade canisters pointedly piled on the rations machine. He’d swipe one before he turned in for the night.

Assuming he  _did_ turn in, of course. And didn’t wind up recharging on the floor.

Knock Out jived with cheerful abandon, having cleared a space in the centre of the mess hall. Smokescreen had been banished to the outskirts, because he kept tripping over his own pedes. He seemed to find this hilarious, and would erupt with regular giggle-fits, in between pouring as much high-grade down his intake as his fuel-tank could stretch to fit.

Knock Out endeavoured to convince Starscream to join him on the makeshift dance floor. No luck so far. The Seeker kept shaking his head. He’d swung a chair around and perched on it backwards, thighs split around the back-rest, giving his wings space to flap.

Deciding the Seeker needed company, Smokescreen stumbled, staggered and crawled to the seat beside him. Now he watched those long, sleek wings as if he'd been hypnotised, as they dropped and rose to the beat, painting mirrored circles in the air. Bumblebee thought he might be drooling. Luckily for Smokescreen's continued function, Starscream had yet to notice.

"Come  _on,_ " wheedled Knock Out. " _Someone_ has to dance with me, else I'll feel self-conscious."

Starscream smirked. "I'm amazed you know what that word means. The answer’s still no.”

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw," said Smokescreen. He didn't seem capable of speech with a higher syllable count.

Starscream ignored him. "I won't be a performing monkey in front of mechs I barely know."

“Well, how do you expect to get to know them, then?” Knock Out circled his hips in a way that probably looked just as obscene as he intended it to.

Starscream crossed his arms. "You have yet to ask the Scout."

"Because he knows I'll make him look bad." Bee put down his half-finished cube and rose. A little too fast – the room spun.

Pff. If Bee could drive after being knocked upside the head in a firefight, he could rock the dance floor with a little charge.

Mm. Nice and tingly. The buzz in his systems crested him into a warm, fuzzy headspace, where everything was amusing and everyone was your friend.

The track switched. The bass-line started:  _whum-whum-whum_ , low enough to shake the floor. One of Raf’s techno beats. Bee wobbled about on his vibrating pedes until certain they weren’t going to buckle under him. Then the electronic jibber-jabber cut in over the top, yammering nonsense in binary.

Bee whooped. He skidded into position beside Knock Out, careering into only a few tables on the way.

Starscream covered his faceplates. Then, after a moment's pause, his audials. "Primus, what  _is_ that racket?"

"Earth thing!" shouted Knock Out and Bumblebee together. Even Smokescreen managed a burble.

Starscream bleated a laugh. He immediately clamped his mouth shut, looking surprised at himself.

It wasn't a  _nice_ laugh. A bit screechy, to be honest. But it seemed genuine. Better than his evil cackles, that was for sure.

"Just you wait," Bee told him, shimmying up next to Knock Out and wiggling his arms above his head. "Next up’s the Macarena."

“The what-now?”

“Macarena!” He shouted it over the thumping bass. Raf had something of an eclectic taste, thanks to his older siblings, most of whom regurgitated '90s pop culture references on repeat.

"Ooh!" Knock Out swayed his aft in a way he probably thought was lascivious, but which actually made him look like he'd got a few gyros loose. "I know that one!"

Smokescreen raised his hand. "Me... too..."

"And we're going to teach Starscream," said Bee decisively.

Starscream’s wings drooped. “Oh no, you’re not.”

“Think again, 'Con.” He pointed to Starscream's drained cube. "You want more high grade, you gotta  _earn_ it."

"Kinky," said Knock Out.

Smokescreen laughed so hard he slithered off his chair and landed in a heap. "Kinky! He s-s-said, he said  _kinky!_ "

Starscream could feign aloofness until the sun rose, but his mouth betrayed him, twitching up ever-so-slightly at one corner. "Did I not do my bit when I located the energon source?"

Bee shook his head. "New rule. To be part of the alliance, you gotta  _dance_ with the alliance."

"I can't  _wait_ for you to try that one on Lord Megatron, upon his return." A strange look passed over Starscream's faceplates, as he said those words. Any other mech might mistake it for wistfulness, but Bee knew better.

He knew how afraid Starscream was. And for good reason.

He shook his helm, focusing on the happy pulse of the music, the wub of the bass, Knock Out's servos as they pulled him into a clumsy twirl. He'd deal with this when the old Warlord was back, once and for all. It was his duty. He owed it to Optimus, to Cybertron, to Starscream, to set this right.

For now though? No sense in worrying the 'Con about the upcoming confrontation. Bee intended to make this night a good one. To show Starscream that he wasn’t alone. That, ex-enemies or otherwise, Bee wasn’t going to let Megatron treat the Seeker like shareware, like a mindless bot built to be used.

"Come on," he insisted. "On your pedes, mech. We've got a dance to learn."

"Om macka-noo, macka-raya maca-rayna," said Smokescreen, very sagely, then rolled to the side and threw up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Thank you so much for every comment. Love to all my readers!**


	4. Big Talks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **HAPPY NEW YEAR! Thank you all so much for supporting this fic.**

 

"Those aren't the lyrics," Bee told Starscream, as Knock Out rolled Smokescreen onto one side, ensuring he wasn't going to choke on his own glossa while the rest of them enjoyed the night. "It's actually _Dale a tu cuerpo alegría Macarena_. Raf told me." He belched against the back of one hand. "Scuse me. It's, uh. It's in Spanish."

Starscream, for once, didn't start kvetching about how inferior human customs had infiltrated their everyday lives. He’d only just managed to yank his pedes out the way of Smokescreen’s purge, and had swiftly relocated to the dance floor, even if he didn't seem inclined to use it for its intended purpose. He tapped his claws on his folded arms, ignoring the pulse of the music.

"What does that mean?"

“Something-something hot body Macarena?”

“No. _Spanish._ ”

Oh – of course. “It’s a language,” Bee started to explain. But then the song switched, and he heard the familiar beats. “It’s starting, quick! Knock Out – is he okay?”

“He’d better be.” The medic stood, grimacing at the empty cube they’d placed within barfing range, in the hope Smokescreen still had the processor-capacity to aim. “I’m not stopping if he starts choking. You hear that, mech?”

Smokescreen gurgled an affirmative, shooting a thumbs-up. Bee rolled his optics. It was nice to know that however much he’d be suffering come lights-up, Smokescreen would be worse.

“Now, let’s get to business.” Knock Out marched up, catching Starscream by the waist and pulling him to stand between them. Starscream jumped – like he always seemed to, when he was touched without warning. But it lagged late, thanks to the high grade, and Knock Out didn’t notice. “So you start with your arms out like _this…_ ”

“Om macka-noo,” sang Smokescreen, loudly and horrifically out of key. “M’ – m’ savin’ this vidclip to my memory processors, alright?”

“Don’t you dare,” Starscream started. But then Knock Out grabbed his wrists and moved him into the next position, and he soon forgot about their overcharged voyeur. “This is a grotesquely simplistic dance. Even a Sparkling would find it boring. We seriously just repeat the same moves while jumping in a circle?”

“It’s all in the execution,” Bee told him.

Knock Out snorted, one hand perilously low on the small of Starscream’s back as he guided him through the turn. “Ignore Mr Killjoy here, who’s used to performing complex aerial ballet with a Seeker flock.”

“I have no idea what ‘ballet’ is.”

“That’s probably for the best. Ready, Bee? Next chorus?”

“So long as I get to stand on the Scout’s far side.” Starscream smacked Knock Out’s wrist, spinning away. He attempted a glower, but his smile kept sneaking out. Bee blamed it on the high grade. “Your servos wander when you’re drunk.”

Knock Out pulled back his hand, wounded. “It’s the medic in me! A need to ensure you’re in fully-functional health –“

“Well, I assure you, my aft-plates are hale.” Starscream shot the doctor a sultry smirk. “Primus knows what Megatron would do if he came back and found red paint-transfers.”

Knock Out snorted. “You’d be on my gurney for a week!”

And both of them _laughed._

Bee clenched his fists. He wanted to grab Knock Out, spin him into the nearest wall. Snarl in his faceplates, _you think this is funny?_

But more than that, he wanted to shake Starscream.

Did he not realize the severity of his own abuse? Primus – rumours of the Warlord’s tendency for taking out his rage on his SIC had been circulating for _millennia._ Perhaps Starscream just... thought this was _normal_?

Bee wouldn’t stand for it. He was about to dismiss his burgeoning overcharge and demand they sit down and _talk,_ when Knock Out grabbed his shoulders and manoeuvred him into position.

“Om macka-noo! Action.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Light.

Agonizing, brutal. A scalpel rammed into each optic.

Bee onlined them, then rapidly switched them off again.

“Uuuuuuuuuuuuuurgh,” he said.

“See?” Arcee’s voice. “Told you so. I left all that low-grade out, and did they touch a drop?”

“Of course not. That would involve logical thought, which these mechs lack even _without_ the aid of high-grade.”

Great. She’d brought Ratchet.

Bee made the monumental effort of turning his optics on again. He pushed himself up, moaning pathetically. His glossa seemed to have rusted to his cheek at some point during the night. His entire protoform felt sticky, _under_ the armour. He didn’t even know that was _possible._

“Easy goes.” Arcee crouched beside him, one servo on his back. She looked insufferably smug.

Bee reset his vocalizer a few times before he tried to talk. “Like you wouldn’t have – urgh – been the worst of the lot of us.”

He still sounded hoarser than the average Death Metal singer. He had a vague recollection of trying to explain the concept to Starscream when Miko’s playlist came on, then remembering he hated it, and falling over his own pedes when he went to change the track. From the looks of it, he’d never made it up off the floor.

Arcee nodded to something behind him. “I don’t know about that. I’d have had stiff competition.”

Bee, still squinting from the harshness of the overheads, glanced around. The sight before him was so surreal he might’ve thought he was still dreaming.

Knock Out had snuggled up to Starscream’s back like a particularly obnoxious limpet. One wing was squashed beneath him. The other stuck up perpendicular, flicking in time with the scrunch of Starscream’s faceplates. Seemed the Seeker was deep in dreamland.

The doctor had drifted even further down the Lethe. Knock Out’s snores reverberated around the room (although doubtless, he’d deny their existence once he was awake). He squeezed Starscream, constricting the trapped wing, and received a sharp-heeled foot to the thigh in vengeance.

“Noh muh…. Finish…” he mumbled, then went limp and started honking and wheezing again.

That was hilarious enough. But Smokescreen? Smokescreen was best of the lot.

He’d obviously pried himself up after his first purge and, rather than doing the sensible, mature thing – calling it a night, chugging some low grade, and heading to berth – had instead peeled the next cube of high-grade and kept drinking. Now he was sprawled over Knock Out’s bulky pedes, aft in the air. A red paint transfer in a very conspicuous place proved Starscream’s point about wandering servos.

Smokescreen's cheek was smushed against one of Starscream’s ankles. He’d leaked a prodigious amount of drool into the joint; bubbles formed whenever Starscream twitched.

Bee laughed, but his helm hurt too much, so he stopped. He would’ve taken a picture for posterity, but he suspected Starscream would end the truce the moment he discovered Bee's betrayal and shoot him there and then.

Best not tempt fate. Bee took the low-grade cube Ratchet handed him with a slur of thanks.

Ratchet proceeded to sweep his medical scanner over him without any pretence at subtlety. Deeming Bee past conversational status, he instead quirked an optic at Arcee.

“Seemed you missed quite the night."

Arcee smirked. “I think I prefer being the sober one come morning.”

What a load of slag. She was a bigger party mech than any of them. Still, Bee couldn’t fault her for not wanting to boogie with the Con who killed Cliffjumper, and Ratchet didn’t call her out on the lie.

Arcee waved to the pile of bots. “Should we wake them up?”

“Be my guest.”

Arcee walked around the sleeping triad, sizing up her options. She rubbed her chin, narrowed her optics – and took a run-up kick to Smokescreen’s uplifted backside.

After that, everything happened at once.

Smokescreen tumbled aft-over-head, steamrolling Starscream into the floor. Starscream yelped, then groaned at the bright lights, then saw Arcee standing over him, smirking like a mad-mech, and all out _shrieked._ That drowned out Knock Out’s snores, who promptly jack-knifed awake and crashed headfirst into Starscream’s wing.

Cue more screeches.

Bumblebee clasped his audials. Smokescreen clasped his mouth.

“Gonna –“

That snapped Starscream out of it. “Don’t you dare! Not on me, no, no –“

“Not on me either!” Knock Out wailed.

Smokescreen compensated by getting plenty on all three of them, himself included. Bee watched the carnage, and counted himself lucky he’d collapsed beyond splash-radius.

Later, as the trio trudged into the wash racks, Starscream and Knock Out competing to see who could complain loudest and Smokescreen whining mortified apologies, Bee turned to Arcee.

“We’ll do this again sometime,” he promised, massaging the sore cabling around his vocalizer. Last thing he wanted was to fritz that out again, even temporarily. “Autobots-only.”

“Don’t bother. I want to drink Screamer under the table.” But she squeezed his servo, and Bee knew she was grateful.

 

 

* * *

 

  

It was mid-afternoon by the time Bee thought to check the ping that’d been flickering on his HUD. It wasn’t marked urgent, so he’d concentrated on getting himself presentable and reporting to the bridge to suffer under Ultra Magnus’s all-too-knowing gaze.

He opened the message. It was, as with most texts from Raf, short, succinct, to the point, and quintessentially human.

**_Um……………………. What?_ **

Bee frowned. Raf had been replying to something, sent by Smokescreen. He opened that message on his HUD too – and almost took a tumble, as he headed down the corridor towards the mess.

Raf must’ve gotten a notification that Bee had opened the message, because another ping popped up. **_Miko says you guys would make a great boy-band_**

Bee massaged his nasal chevron. **_Might have to find some more up-to-date music_**

**_What r u talking about? Macarena’s a classic!_ **

Bee buzzed a laugh. His vocalizer was still struggling, and as much as he disliked reverting to binary now he no longer _had_ to, it _was_ a little easier on the throat.

 _Ping_. New message. From Miko, this time.

**_I can’t believe ur dancing with Screamer! Doc Knock’s bad enough_ **

_**Hey, we have a truce.** _The words appeared on the HUD messenger as Bee thought them. **_Team bonding, right?_**

**_Looked more like team-partying!! Still, at least they got rhythm_ **

**_Not as good as me though. Right?_ **

**_Sorry, Bee,_** Raf pinged him. ** _You kinda turned the wrong way._**

 ** _I’ve sent it to Wheeljack and Bulk,_** came Miko’s next text. **_They can judge. Cybertron’s Next Top Dancer!_**

Bee groaned. He dismissed his HUD, and – tanks still tender – bypassed dinner entirely in favour of falling face-first into his berth.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Suffice to say, by the time they trudged into the mess hall the next morning, that video was on each of the Autobots' CPUs. Knock Out’s included – Smokescreen had included him on the mailing list. The doctor had snitched to Starscream, who made a half-sparked effort to claw out Smokescreen’s optics before a gang of Autobots dogpiled him to the floor.

“Okay,” he growled, when wiggling failed to dislodge them. “Get up. You’re squashing my wings.”

“Boo hoo,” said Arcee. She was crouched over his neck, gun arm transformed, muzzle flush with his temple. She was last of them to extract herself, as Bee stood from where he’d driven his shoulder into the back of Starscream’s knees, and Ratchet peeled himself from where he’d belly-flopped on the Seeker's back with as much dignity as possible.

“Take this as a warning,” he told Starscream. “Another stunt like that, and we’ll toss you in the brig. Arcee, get off him.”

Arcee stood, but not without grumbling. She tapped her gun against the side of Starscream’s helm. “ _And_ I’ll broadcast that vid along with our next star-transmission.”

Starscream flipped onto his back, pressing close to the floor. “N-no! Anything, please!”

“Save the begging for when Megatron gets home.” Arcee leaned in. “Knowing Wheeljack, he’ll have shown that vid to him personally.”

The horror that swept over Starscream’s face might be funny to Arcee, but Bee found it anything but. “Get up,” he growled, catching one skinny gray arm and dragging the mech to his pedes. “We’re supposed to be refuelling, not fighting.”

Starscream kept his glossa under control as Bee shepherded him to a table at the back of the mess hall, righted from their dance session of the night before. Then he yanked his elbow free of his grip and sunk onto the chair, straddling it like he usually did so his wings had space to flap. His slim, sly optics watched Bee as he went to the energon purifier, retrieved two cubes (of the lowest grade possible; his helm still hurt and he was willing to bet that Starscream’s did too, even if he was too proud to admit it).

“Why are you doing this?” he asked when he returned. He pitched his voice too low for the other bots to hear. “The flight, the dancing, all of it. Why be…” A shiver fitted through his frame. _“Nice?_ ”

“Don’t say it like it’s a dirty word.” Bee settled down, passing him his cube. “Anyway, I’m an Autobot. It’s my job.”

Starscream grumbled something uncomplimentary about soft-sparked fools, but at least he couldn’t talk while he was drinking.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It would be a Friday on Earth. Bee turned his mind to Raf. What was he doing, right now? It would be mid-afternoon, in Earth time – Bee couldn’t be bothered to make the calculations and work out exactly when. His little human friend would either have just finished school or would be sat in his last class, scribbling his notes, not watching the clock until the moment the bell rang.

Then it’d be out, over the acid-green lawn, hopping the crumbling brick wall to where Jack and Miko waited. Even with the bots off-world, the three of them would always be friends. Much like Bee, Arcee and Smokescreen. That’s what you got for fighting together.

“Do I _have_ to help on the construction site?” Knock Out whined. “There’ll be so much _dust…_ ”

Bee fought down his smile. And sometimes, what you got for fighting against each other, too.

Ratchet brandished another instrument from his medical armoury – this being a drill with a spiral tip that looked designed to bore through a chest-plate, either to perform emergency spark-surgery or to extract information when an enemy bot was feeling tight-lipped. “I want you out from under my pedes! And the vehicons have a tendency to damage themselves when left unsupervised – I’m sure you’re familiar with it. They could use a medic.”

“Blatant discrimination against ex-Cons,” Knock Out muttered, but when Ratchet waved the drill and cocked a brow, he pretended he’d said nothing. “Ugh. Guess I’ll bridge out this afternoon, when Megatron returns. So long as I get to return every night and use the solvent showers!”

Bee, on his way back from the mine, pushing a hovering trolley full of glowing blue crystals, froze. He unfortunately forgot to hold onto the trolley, which continued along its trajectory until Ultra Magnus’s claw-hand shot out and fastened around the handle. “Bumblebee?”

Bee flashed him a smile. “I’m – I’m fine. Can I take Starscream on another scouting mission this afternoon?”

“We have plenty of energon – our stocks will last us lunar-cycles yet.”

“But – but it can’t hurt to scan further afield and ensure that the energon in the crust is actually replenishing, right? That the Allspark is working the way it ought to?”

“It’s _the Allspark,_ ” Ratchet pointed out. “It’s not like it can break.”

Ultra Magnus’s face plates always seemed stiff to Bee, like they’d set solid. Still, they twisted malleably into a frown. “Bumblebee,” he said, handing the trolley to Arcee, who guided it away, rolling her optics as if to say _you got yourself into this._ “Accompany me. I think we should talk.”

Bee glanced at the medics, both of whom suddenly became very interested in polishing smuts off Ratchet’s drill. Primus knew why he was even carrying it around with him. Probably just to threaten Knock Out.

No salvation from that department. Bee swallowed, glossa moving thick in his throat, and nodded.

“Sure, sir.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Are you romantically interested in Starscream?” was the first question Ultra Magnus posed to him, once the Bridge’s soundproof door had whooshed shut.

He started listing his evidence while Bee was busy making unattractive gurgling noises.

“You were the first one to approach him. You took him outside to fly. You accompanied him on the first scouting mission, and now you are requesting another. Then…” Those icy blue optics flicked to his. “The party.”

Bee found his voice. “That was Knock Out’s idea! H-he invited the fragger!” He was the one Magnus ought to be interrogating, what with his wandering servos. Bee hadn’t realized until he found a reflective surface just how many red paint transfers were on his door-wings. Apparently, Knock Out was a fan.

“Language, Bee. What about that…” Magnus grimaced. “…Video…”

Those doors might not enjoy the same range of movement as the wings of a seeker, but they could still droop. “You, uh. You saw that?”

“I don’t think there’s a mech alive on Cybertron who _hasn’t_ seen it.”

Bee covered his faceplates. “Scrap.”

Magnus sighed. His steady pede-steps clanked to a halt. Next moment, a warm weight insinuated itself on Bee’s shoulder. Magnus’s servo – the hand, not the claw.

“I ask out of concern. Both for you and our truce. I don't like to imagine what Megatron might do to anyone he suspected of vying for his Second’s attention.”

Bee tasted sour energon on the back of his tongue. “You and me both.” _To me, or to Starscream._

This was his chance. Yes, it was one hell of an awkward conversation, and not one Bee ever wanted to repeat. But he had Magnus alone! He could talk to him, explain his suspicions, ask for advice. Magnus was an experienced mech; he’d know what to do.

And, Bee realized with a blaze of self-directed frustration, he should’ve done this to start with. Just because Optimus was gone, it didn’t mean he had to handle everything alone. There were still older mechs, more experienced mechs. Mechs who could shoulder some of his burdens, and help him find the right path. He looked up at the low-loader, his spark already floating higher in his chest.

“Ultra Magnus?”

“Yes?”

“I’m not… I’m not _interested_ in Starscream.” Pits, even saying that felt gross. It made Bee want to stick out his glossa like a sparkling.

Ultra Magnus kept watching him, silent. Bee scrambled to explain.

“He’s like, a millennium older than me. And I know Seekers’re supposed to be sexy and all –“ Ultra Magnus’s brows crimped together. Bee hastened on. “But he’s really skinny and totally not my type. I like Grounders. I think. I’m fairly sure? I mean, Arcee’s pretty, but she’s kind-of my sister." Bonded by battle, not birth. "Smokescreen’s too much of a dork, and Knock Out’s… Knock Out. Bulk and Jackie have each other, and you and Ratchet are too. Um. Mature.” He rubbed the back of his helm. “I don’t think I’ll be on the dating scene any time soon.”

“The reassurance is appreciated,” said Ultra Magnus, drily. “That’s one less mech for me to worry about.”

“Let’s not be too hasty.” Bee winced at the memory of all those paint transfers. “Knock Out may seduce me yet.”

“Luckily, he’s more interested in seducing his own reflection.”

Bee couldn’t fault that. “I know I’ve seemed… Weirdly close to Screamer, lately. I know it’s creeping you guys out – Arcee especially.” He snorted. “I think it’s creeping him out too. He’s obviously not used to… y’know. Nice things.”

“Not from an Autobot.”

“Not from anybody! Least of all Megatron. Look, Magnus.” Bee wet his lip plates. “Megatron hurts him. A _lot._ It’s been going on for years; we all know it. I thought it was just because Screamer kept trying to kill him, but he doesn’t do that anymore.” He shook his helm, fists clenched. “It’s like he’s given up! He calls him _Master,_ he does whatever he tells him. But it’s not enough. He’s still in and out of Knock Out’s medbay like a yo-yo.”

Ultra Magnus’s faceplates were about as readable as a broken datapad. “What’s a yo-yo?”

“Human thing. Look. Starscream's been sneaking out of his room at night, half-slagged, to steal field medikits. He’s not okay! But he won’t admit it – he’s too proud, or, or he _doesn’t know it’s wrong._ ” The more Bee spoke, the more he realized the sickening truth of his words. “He thinks he deserves it, or else he’s so _used_ to being smacked about he expects it, or – pits, I don’t know. He might even genuinely love the bastard enough to let him treat him like shareware –“

“Language,” said Ultra Magnus again, but he sounded like he was mulling this over. Bee allowed himself to relax. Magnus might not be Optimus, but he was the next closest thing. He’d help him. He’d help Starscream. He’d make it all better. “…You’re telling me that Starscream was the one stealing medkits?”

Bee could’ve dropped his helm into his servos. “No, I – yes! But that’s not the _point!_ Megatron and Starscream –“

Magnus’s mouth tweaked up at one corner. “Oh,” he said, like he was in on some joke. “You don’t need to worry about that.” Then the frown returned, full force. “I’ll take care of Starscream.”

Something told Bee he didn’t mean in the nurturing, agapeic, love-of-the-Allspark sort of way.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 Ten minutes later, and Bee was taking out his frustrations on his berth-room. He’d kicked a decent-sized dent in the wall already.

“Scrap! I can’t believe it! Just because he’s a Con!”

He would’ve expected this flippancy from Arcee. He couldn’t hope for help from Knock Out either – the medic was clearly aware of the abuse, but seemed to have no motivation to stop it. He was just as screwed in the helm as Starscream himself.

But to have a matter of this severity dismissed by _Ultra Magnus_?

That was different. Bee respected him. Bee _looked up to him._ Bee had, until this moment, wanted to be like him, one day. Maybe a little less of a hard-aft, but still.

Bee studied his shaking servos. He clenched them, hard enough that frissons of pain shot through the bolts that locked his hands to his wrists.

“Optimus wouldn’t let this happen,” he said. Then, with growing determination: “And I won’t, either.”

One joor from now, Megatron would return from the Wreckers’ building site. He’d drag Starscream back to their quarters and hurt him. Ultra Magnus’s actions had proven one thing: that Bee was the only mech who could – the only mech who _would –_ stop it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **So, Bee finally told someone about his problems.... And it didn't go according to plan. >:D Please leave comments and kudos! They're cherished.**


	5. Blow The Mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Starscream uses the same safeword he uses in 'Equality', by Donskoi. I absolutely recommend that fic if you haven't already read it! It's one of the first things I read in this fandom, way-back in the day.**

The groundbridge activated. From within the turquoise gyre came the clang of heavy pedes meeting steel.

Bee's optics twitched to Starscream. The Seeker stood next to him, helm upraised. His gaze was fixed on the level where Megatron's face would emerge from the vortex. He'd underestimated, slightly, thanks to Unicron's expansion of the Warlord's frame. His wings chittered at their highest position.

 _Anticipation,_ any other mech might assume.

 _Fear,_ thought Bumblebee.

He shot Ultra Magnus a glare. Even if other mechs on this base were willing to turn a blind optic, Bee refused. Not in Optimus's name.

Megatron's cloven feet ( _el diablo,_ Raf once whispered) were first to appear. They met the flooring of the _Nemesis's_ bridge, making the galvanized Cybertronian-steel plates judder in their casings. The vibration spread up and out through Starscream's wings. The Seeker folded his servos neatly behind his back, donning the mantle of the perfect soldier.

Only an act, of course. A semblance of strength, to hide the pain within. Bee found it stomach-turning to watch. He looked at Megatron instead.

The sight of the Warlord's frame always had an odd effect on Bee. He was huge, towering above even Ultra Magnus. But then again, after his upgrade, Optimus had been larger. It wasn't just size. It was physical imposition. _Intent._

With Optimus, his grand scale was accompanied by a sense of calmness, of exquisite control. Megatron? Any hint of temperance was a veneer. Only paint-deep. He was violence incarnate: pure, unadulterated chaos. His stint as Unicron’s vessel suited him more than this charade of peace.

 _Yeah,_ thought Bee, as Megatron's shadow fell over them. _Nothing like Optimus at all._

Starscream clinked forwards with a sly twist of a smirk. Megatron's optics fell on the Seeker. They ran up and down like hungry scraplets, devouring him whole.

Ultra Magnus cleared his throat. "I trust matters proceeded peacefully?"

Megatron's stare cooled considerably as it affixed itself to the low-loader. "Indeed."

That seemed to be all he was willing to say on the matter. Silence stagnated for all of a minute. The bots met each other’s eyes. Megatron, for his part, just stared levelly down at Ultra Magnus, as Starscream slunk to occupy his usual space at the Warlord's right-hand side.

Smokescreen clapped his servos. "Right then! Great! Well, glad we got that over with. Good talk, guys. I'll, um, be going now -"

"I'll go with you," said Knock Out, all but scrambling for the door.

Arcee modeled her usual sneer, the one she always wore in the presence of Cons. "I'll make sure they don't do anything stupid."

"Stupider than usual," was Ratchet addendum. Arcee saluted. The door whooshed shut behind her, and Bee couldn’t help but wish he’d followed along.

Megatron's faceplates remained immobile, except for the faintest of twitches, plucking at the corner of one scarred lip. Could that be... _amusement?_ "You did not all need to gather here. I did not expect a welcoming committee."

"We weren't sure if you would bring us Wheeljack and Bulkhead's severed helms.” Ratchet turned to Ultra Magnus. “Comm me if you need me. I’m headed back to my medbay.”

"Will do."

Megatron shook his helm, as if Ratchet's fears were in any way unfounded. "Come, Starscream," he said. "Let us retire to our quarters.”

"Y-yes, Lord Megatron." Flick, flick, flick went Starscream's wings. Bee was caught by the stupid impulse to grab them, keep them still. From the way Megatron watched them, he felt the same way. Bee shivered to imagine it: those brutal hands, each of which could easily enfold Starscream’s waist, crumpling his wings like tin-foil…

"Wait." Ultra Magnus stood. "Starscream, I wish to have words with you.”

Megatron made a motion, as if he was extending permission. “Go on, then.”

Magnus held his ground. “In private."

Bee's spark leapt for his throat. Could it be? Perhaps Bee had jumped the gun when he assumed that Ultra Magnus wouldn't lift a digit in a Con's name.

"I, uh..." Starscream glanced at Megatron, eyes pleading. He sunk into his usual fearful hunch. "Do I _have_ to?"

Megatron reached out. Bee flinched on Starscream's behalf. But the huge, clawed hand that settled over the Seeker’s thruster was gentle, even as it gave him a firm nudge in Ultra Magnus’s direction. "We will talk about your overcharged conduct later. You are one of the last representatives of the Decepticon order, Starscream. I expect better."

Bee could groan. That video. _Scrap_.

Starscream made himself look pathetic. “Lord Megatron…”

“Later, I said.”

Another push, rougher this time. There was a soft _shing_ of scraping metal. One of Megatron’s claws had peeled a curling line from the bare steel on Starscream’s back. The flier shivered helm to pedes.

Megatron rumbled his engine. “Go.”

With one last petrified glance at his so-called Master, Starscream nodded. He tottered to Magnus’s side, a little shaky.

Bee tightened his lip plates. He couldn’t leap on Megatron and introduce his knuckles to his faceplates. Not here. Not now. They needed a coordinated attack, all of them working together. They’d have to take him by surprise.

He loitered, in the hopes Ultra Magnus might start discussing their offensive. But the big mech simply looked at him, then pointedly flicked his optics to the door.

Bee supposed that made sense. Starscream wasn’t one to open up in front of witnesses. He shot the Con what he hoped was a supportive smile – receiving a bewildered raise of the brow-ridges in return.

Poor mech. He really didn’t know how to deal with friendship.

Bee would show him, he decided. Starscream could be as prickly as he liked, but Bee was stubborner than most mechs gave him credit for. Once he dug his pedes in, it’d take a force of Primus himself to make him let go.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

"I," hissed the Seeker, prowling into Bee’s personal space and wagging his talon under Bee’s chevron, "cannot _believe_ you."

Bee held up both servos. "Um. What did I do?"

"Betrayal! Treachery!"

Those were some big words, coming from him. Starscream had accosted Bee in the middle of the mess hall, ignoring – for once – Arcee as she loured and transformed her guns. He had optics only for Bumblebee.

They were almost of a size, Starscream a little taller, Bee considerably broader. With his wings up and his pointy claws flexed ready to strike, the Seeker was more than capable of looming.

"Back down, Scream," called Smokescreen, from across the room – though he looked a little spooked, all the same. "Don't want a repeat of last cycle."

"I really will brig you," Ratchet promised. "In the smallest cell on board, Seeker-coding be damned."

Starscream spared them a poisonous look. His claw hovered before Bee's faceplates, more accusative than threatening. "I’m not going to _kill_ him.”

“Well,” Bee managed. “That’s a relief.”

“If I planned on that I would have lured him to an unpopulated corridor, rather than confronting him in front of your amassed forces."

Bee’s intake flexed within the cabling around his throat. He made a mental note to steer clear of solo meetings with the mech.

Ultra Magnus lowered himself back on his seat. "So,” he rumbled, clasping his claw with his hand. “This is a show of faith?"

"No.” Up close, Starscream’s sneer was damn near demonic. The red biolights of his optics ran off his unpainted faceplates, the metal glistening like an oil slick. "It's me informing your precious _Scout_ what I will do to him if he _ever_ _tells on me_ again."

"Snitches get stitches," Knock Out agreed. Having returned from his first shift at the construction site, he sat forwards on his chair like he was a spectator at an astroball match. "Decepticon Code."

Smokescreen rolled his optics. “Don’t encourage them.”

“Be quiet,” snapped Starscream. “Bumblebee?”

Bumblebee scrambled to a shoddy attention. "Um. Yeah?"

"Your actions were uncalled for. Rest assured they will not go unpunished, and -"

Bee still had no idea what I'm talking about. "Can you at least tell me what I did wrong?"

At the warning hum from Arcee's blasters, Starscream forced his clawed servos back down by his sides. "There. Satisfied? You, _Scout,_ saw fit to inform that legislation-loving slagger -" Magnus cleared his intake. Starscream made no indication that he'd heard. "-About my nocturnal activities!"

Was he saying Magnus confronted him about the medikit, rather than helping him come to terms with the abuse he’d suffered at Megatron’s servos? Bee could hardly believe it. "I was just trying to help -"

"Well, you didn’t! The only thing you accomplished was to _humiliate_ me!" Starscream's voice lowered to a furious hiss, crackling with static. "That stuck-up sixteen-wheeler -"

"Still here," said Magnus, mildly.

"-Who's so far up his own tailpipe he spouts nothing but exhaust and hot air -"

"I think he's counting on it," said Ratchet. Arcee, for her part, still had her blasters up, but she looked a little amused.

"-Has got me tallying _all the stock on ship!_ For the next _vorn!"_ Starscream ruffled his wings. "I'm a _Seeker_ , you know. It's an _ineffable torment_ for us to stay grounded for long periods. Breaks our minds. Obviously, you Bots are greater sadists than we gave you credit for."

"You'll still have regimented breaks, same as any other worker," came Magnus's easy reply. "Fly then."

"Ugh! You Autobots, trying to win my trust with your _standardized work ethics!_ " Starscream span back to Bee, optics blazing. "Rest assured, Scout. I will have my revenge."

"So long as that revenge doesn't involve you spilling his energon," Ratchet said, while Bee shied away from Starscream and fought for control of his transmission-fluid bladder.

Starscream scoffed. " _Please._ I can be inventive." And with one last glower at Bee, out he flounced.

Bee let himself breathe.

"Phew!” Knock Out sauntered over, clapping Bee on the shoulder. He pulled him in against his side with a laugh far too cheery for the situation at hand. "Thought I was going to have to give you a paint touch-up, at the very least."

Bee ex-vented. "At least you've already done the medical stock-check, right?" That'd be one less task on Starscream's list.

Bee still struggled to comprehend the fact that Magnus was _punishing_ Starscreram. He couldn't look at the big mech right now. Not without punching him – and that wouldn't end well.

“Well,” said Knock Out. “About that."

"You didn't complete the stock check?" Where Ratchet had pulled that wrench from, Bee didn't like to contemplate. " _Knock Out!_ I gave you _one_ simple task!”

"One _boring_ task!” Knock Out unwound himself from Bee. “Have you no mercy? Are you trying to _force_ me into self-stasis?"

“If only you’d fall into it, so I didn’t have to suffer having you as my assistant!”

Bee ignored them. Let them squabble. He honed his audials, listening to the receding clink of Starscream's pedes.

The Seeker was headed deeper into the ship. Towards Z-deck.

Towards Megatron.

 _"Scrap.”_ Bee started for the door. "I've gotta go..."

"Oh no you don't!" Knock Out ducked around him, blocking his exit. "You're my Cybertronian shield! Ratchet, please, think about this -"

"I told you what I'd do to your polish if I caught you slacking again!"

Starscream's continued function was more important than Knock Out's obsession with his paint. Still, it took a whole breem for Bee to shoulder him off, leaving him to the medic's tender mercies. Bee assured himself that Knock Out wouldn’t be harmed. No more than he deserved, at least. The Autobots didn't _actually_ condone torture – even if Magnus was willing to discipline an abuse victim for seeking medical treatment.

Bee's fists shook at his sides.

Just because Starscream tried to heal himself off the books, without proper protocol. Because Megatron had hurt him, and Starscream was _ashamed…_

Bee couldn't help it. He shot Ultra Magnus a scorcher of a glare. Ultra Magnus didn’t notice, too busy scolding Arcee for onlining her weapons in a communal space without the authorization of a superior officer.

Well, if Magnus couldn't see the error of his ways, Bee wasn't volunteering to teach him. The mech should know better. They should _all_ know better. What Megatron did to Starscream was no joke.

Bee let the door swish shut behind him. Starscream would’ve reached Megatron by now. _Anything_ could be happening to him – and Starscream had willingly walked back towards it. Primus knew, Magnus had proven to him that the Autobots didn’t care. That they weren’t going to help.

Well, Magnus didn’t speak for Bee.

He hastened down the corridor, listening to the ring of his own pedes. It took four steps for the echo to overlap, a melodious hum that rang out before Bee and receded after him, surrounding him in a cocoon of noise.

It meant that he didn’t hear the happy purrs and rumbles of flight-model engines as he stormed towards the Z-deck barracks gate. It meant he didn’t hear the murmur of _Usual words?_ And _Primus, Lord Megatron, yes._

He did hear, however, as he stomped past Megatron’s rampant fusion canon, the sharp, shrill “No, please –“ and the screech of rending metal that accompanied it.

Bee froze.

Sobbing. Starscream was sobbing.

Hitchy intakes, too fast and too wet to be anything else. A high, agonized whine.

“L-lord Megatron, Master, please don’t, don’t – Oh! Ah, Primus!”

“Little fool.” That was Megatron, a bass growl that could shake entire planets.

Bee couldn’t move. He was frozen in place, locked up like he’d seen one of those basilisk-things from the _Harry Potter_ films Raf insisted they marathon on his last birthday.

“Fraternizing with the enemy,” continued Megatron. Another sharp screech, a gasp of spark-rending anguish. “Embarrassing yourself like that. Embarrassing _me._ ”

“I – I didn’t mean – Lord Megatron – it was not my – _ah, please!_ ”

“And don’t think I didn’t notice those scuffs on your armour. You let that medic get handsy again.”

“No – no –“

“Is that what you are, Starscream? A _slut?_ “ Something _cracked_. Starscream wailed. “A pathetic little glitch? A piece of shareware who can’t go for a week without a mech between their legs?”

Bee jerked. He’d _suspected_ the nature of Megatron and Starscream’s relationship from that first print on Starscream’s thigh. High up the leg, disturbingly intimate. But to hear it _confirmed_ …

Primus, that poor Seeker.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry –“

 _Crack._ “I didn’t ask for grovelling. I asked a question. Answer it.”

“I – but – oh, Lord Megatron, please –“

_Crack._

“That’s what happens when you disobey.” A derisive snort. “Hardly punishment, for your greedy aft.”

Starscream _whimpered._ “M-Master…” _Crack._ “Ow! Primus. What does my Master w-w-want?”

“I want you to say it.” The big mech’s cooling fans clanked on, starting at the low-end of Bumblebee’s audial range but rapidly rising in speed and pitch. Sick fragger. He was _getting off_ on this. “Say it for me. Tell me you’re a slut.” A slow scratch; a whine. “Tell me you’ll open your valve for any mech who asks.”

“N-n-“

_Crack._

“I won’t ask twice.”

“I’m a slut!”

“Tell me you’re dirty.”

“I – I – “ Starscream’s scratchy voice jerked up and down the octave, sputtering out between his sobs. “I’m _filthy,_ Master.”

“Mm.” Megatron sounded sickly satisfied. Bee’s processor spun a grotesque image: the big mech on the floor, Seeker prostrate across his lap, tears trickling down his face as he begged for someone, anyone to save him. “Tell me you’re mine.”

“I’m – I’m yours.” No hesitation. It must’ve been beaten out of him.

“Good boy.”

Megatron didn't hit him again. But the lewd, wet squelch that followed made every plate clamp tight to Bumblebee’s protoform.

No! He couldn’t just stand here!

Yes, he was horrified, disgusted, _furious._ All of it on Starscream’s behalf. But what use were emotions if you didn’t act on them?

Optimus had taught him that. Optimus had taught him to never walk away from someone in need. To never let another lifeform, friend or foe, suffer injustice. To help people. To preserve lives and heal sparks wherever possible.

To wipe monsters like Megatron out of existence.

That settled it. Bee opened the door.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It wasn’t as climactic as he’d imagined – mostly because the door was automatic. He couldn’t exactly hurl it wide and have it crash back on his hinges, like angry humans did in the movies. The door slithered into the wall with a soft hydraulic hiss.

It didn't distract the mechs who knelt at the centre of the empty dorm.

Megatron faced away from him. His gargantuan form dwarfed Starscream, hiding his debauchment. But Bee saw the huge gladiator's mouth rove along the trailing edge of Starscream’s wing, gnawing the sensitive aileron.

Starscream’s wings flicked desperately. Megatron had to crush the flier on his lap so he couldn’t escape. His face was tucked against the colossal plane of Megatron’s shoulder. As Bee clanked closer, intent thrumming in his tight, trembling fists, Starscream glanced up.

Hazy red eyes met his. They sharpened pretty quick, widening like dying stars until they filled Starscream’s face.

“Primus,” Bee heard the Seeker squawk, as if from a great distance. “Megatron! _Blow the mine!_ ”

Megatron froze. “Starscream? Are you –“

Then Bumblebee punched him in the head, as hard as he deserved.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **First half of the last chapter! We're nearly finished, folks. Thank you all SO MUCH for giving this fic your support!**


	6. Final Thoughts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Discussions are had. And Bee touches Starscream's goo and I'm _so sorry._ It seemed hilarious when I was writing it, but good god, the second-hand embarrassment!**

Later, as they sat in the medbay being tended by an unamused Ratchet and a _very_ amused Knock Out (Megatron’s glare being the only thing that kept him from guffawing out loud), the situation seemed ridiculous. But back then, as Megatron _snarled,_ ‘ridiculous’ was the last word on Bumblebee’s mind.

“Scout? What in Primus’s name do you _think_ you’re –“

Bee punched him again. Left-hook, hard as he could.

Starscream was squeaking non-stop, scrabbling at Megatron’s back.  _Trying to escape,_ Bee’s processor supplied. He bypassed the Seeker’s words (“ _What in pits – Scout? No, stop, this isn’t what it looks like –_ “) and focused on the real threat.

Unfortunately, this also meant focusing on Megatron and Starscream’s position.

Starscream had wriggled backwards, straddling the Warlord’s thighs rather than locking his legs around his waist. Streaks of black paint from Megatron’s servos adorned his cockpit, more on his hips. Each wing bore several striations, carved to the exact dimensions of Megatron’s claws.

And as for those claws themselves… Or, more specifically, where they were buried?

 _Primus._ Bee desperately wished to erase that image from his processor, but now wasn't the time for a memory-purge. 

Megatron extracted his digits with a wet suck, making Starscream’s faceplate heat to crimson. “F-Frag, Megatron!”

“That was the idea,” growled the Warlord. “But clearly, this Autobot disapproves.”

Bee held his ground. Amazingly, he’d managed to dent Megatron’s stupid bucket-head. The crusty metal now bore a shallow, knuckle-shaped impression on either side. However, that was the extent of the damage. He hadn’t even set the Warlord off balance.

A niggle badgered at the back of Bee’s processor. _You won’t win this. Not alone._

Last time he killed Megatron, he’d had the element of surprise. He’d already lost that. Dammit. Why did he go for the slagger’s armored helmet? Should’ve aimed for the neck cables, struck a mortal blow…

No. This wasn’t about winning. This was about proving to Starscream that there were still mechs in this galaxy who were willing to put their life on the line for others. Who took a stand against tyranny.

Mechs like Optimus Prime.

Bee straightened his back-strut. “I won’t let you hurt him,” he said.

And Megatron…

Megatron _laughed._

“It’s not funny!” Bee swung again.

This time, Megatron caught him. He wrapped Bee’s fist within his own, squeezing tight enough to make the bolts strain, caught on the cusp of buckling. All he had to do was close his grip. Then – _crunch._ Ultra Magnus wouldn’t be the only Autobot with a handicap.

But that wasn’t what snagged on Bee’s processor and pulled for his attention. One of Megatron’s claws was…

 _Sticky_.

Bee met Starscream’s optics. The Seeker looked horrified. Bee imagined he must be wearing much the same expression.

Megatron capitalized. He plucked Starscream from his lap, hurling him out the way. The Seeker hit their nest of dismantled bedding with an undignified squawk. He rolled twice, wings beating the air, and flumped to a stop.

His panel was still undone. Bee did his best not to think about that.

“You,” growled Megatron, “had better stop this madness, Scout. Right. _Now._ ”

He squeezed. Bee’s arm spasmed with pain.

“Frag you!”

“You’re making a mistake!” Starscream pulled himself from the nest, shaking off shreds of stuffing. He was still dripping energon; rivulets twined across his sliced-up wings, splitting and branching, delicate as lace. “Scout, listen –“

Bee bared his dentae. “Don’t protect him!” Megatron kept  _smirking,_ that was the worst thing. “He doesn’t deserve it, Starscream! Not after what he’s done to you!”

A staticky chirrup of frustration. “Primus, would you _listen…_ ”

“It appears,” said Megatron, “that you are missing a few _facts._ ”

“I know _everything_!” Bee swung his other fist around. Megatron caught that too. “I know what you’ve done to him! I know it’s been going on _years!_ I know you’ve made him too scared to say no – pits! Get up and _fight me_ , you old rustbucket!”

Megatron looked at Starscream. Starscream looked at Megatron.

“Well,” said Starscream, slowly. “He _did_ tell you to.”

Megatron stood. He lifted Bee until his pedes brushed the floor – then higher still. Never once did that cruel grin abate.

“Fragger!” Bee kicked the Warlord’s stomach plates. The armour absorbed the impact. Megatron’s faceplates didn’t even twitch, although the _clang_  ricocheted around the room.

Starscream also rose to his pedes, rather wobbly about the ankles. There was the _snick_ of a closing interface plate. “Master, don’t –“

Megatron grimaced. “Don’t call me _Master,_ outside of scenes. It's... disturbing.”

Like he hadn't made all of his subordinates kowtow to him, back when he was lording it over the  _Nemesis._ The hypocrisy just made Bee madder.

Starscream rolled his optics. “ _Megatron._ I would be most grateful if you _didn’t_ beat the Scout to slag.”

“Why?” Megatron was obviously confident in Bumblebee’s inability to escape; he didn’t bother looking at him. As if he was an errant sparkling. As if he wasn’t a threat! “Friend of yours?”

“Of course not. Especially not after this stunt.”

Okay, so Bee hadn’t expected him to fling himself sobbing into his arms (and would've expected a set of claws to the back-struts if he did). But even accounting for Starscream's caustic personality, this was far from the reaction he’d hoped for. Did the Seeker not realize that Bee was buying him time to escape?

“Run!” he cried. “Go! I’ll hold him off!”

“Yes," said Starscream. "You’re doing a very good job of that.”

Bee thrashed in Megatron’s grip, but found it unrelenting. “You’re not moving."

“Mm. I wonder why that is?”

Bee racked his processor. “Because you’re afraid of him! Of what he’ll do to you!”

“ _No_ , you pesky bug!” Starscream’s wings flared, all four of them. The iris-rings at the centre of his optics narrowed to white-hot points. “Because I was about to get _fragged_ for the first time this decacycle and _you got in the way_!”

Bee’s mouth opened. Bee’s mouth shut.

Megatron hoisted Bee a half-meter higher. “I’ll dispose of this. We can pick up where we left off.”

“What?” Bee started squirming again, pulling his pedes up to scuff the Decepticon insignia on Megatron’s broad barrel of a chest. “No! Stay away from him, or I’ll –“

Megatron tilted his helm. “What exactly is your objection?”

Was he dense? Perhaps Bee’s strikes to his helm had done more damage than he initially thought. “You’re _hurting_ him!”

“Yes,” snapped Starscream. “And I _like_ it. Toss him out, Megatron.”

Bee’s processor whirled. _Like it?_ Surely Starscream was just saying that, because Megatron was here. Because he was listening. They were words forced from him by fear, by the threat of the beating that would follow.

Bee fought as Megatron carried him to the exit, at arm’s length. It did little good.

“Starscream, talk to me! What’s going on? I don’t understand –“

“You’ve made that abundantly clear.” The seeker stepped after them, flicking beads of energon from the punctures on his wings. “I’ll deal with you later, child. For now…”

Megatron dropped him. Bee crumpled, then sprung up again, furious. “Starscream!”

“…We were in the middle of something,” Starscream finished. He snapped his fingers and pointed to the berth. Megatron snorted, but it sounded more amused than wrathful. He hoisted the Seeker up, tossing him over one shoulder (careful to avoid the spikes) while his injured wings fluttered above. One possessive hand fell to rest on his aft.

“Scout,” he said, tipping Bumblebee a nod.

Starscream, surveying him from his newly elevated position, waved an imperious hand. “Go get that servo fixed. I’ll find you later. And don’t you _dare_ come in again, or…” His scowl twisted into a baleful smirk. “Next time, we don’t stop.”

The door gushed shut. Bee was alone.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Bee's fury drizzled away as he plodded to the medbay, dragging his pedes, one slow step after the next. Confusion replaced it, bubbling from deep within him like sparks from the well.

Megatron hurt Starscream.

Starscream...  _liked it?_

It didn't make any sense! The one thing Bee could be sure of was that he'd just made a bigger fool of himself than Smokescreen at that party. The only difference was, he couldn't blame it on the high-grade. 

Primus, Arcee was never going to let him forget this.

Ratchet, taking stock of his mood, was decent enough to conduct repairs in silence. Bee would've welled up with gratitude, if he wasn't busy convincing himself that while hurling himself into the well after Optimus  _was_ the quickest way to escape embarrassment, it wouldn't actually solve anything.

He’d just finished having his servo straightened when Starscream sashayed in, Megatron in tow. The doorways on the upper decks of the ship might account for the Warlord's mass, but he still overflowed the scale of the room, turning the medbay from _spacious_ to _crowded_ with a single step.

Bee shrunk down, curling away from them as if he could compress his plating into a smaller and smaller area of space, until he simply ceased to exist. Luckily, Ratchet addressed them so he didn't have to. He groaned at Starscream - or, more specifically, his injured wings.

“Do you _know_  how fiddly Seeker systems are to fix?”

“I volunteer,” said Knock Out, sidling across. Starscream would’ve raised his nose, if he had one.

“You just want all the juicy details.”

Knock Out chortled. “Juicy, eh?”

“You  _disgust_ me.”

Ratchet shook his head. He turned to Megatron. “Why are _you_ here?”

This was the bit Bee dreaded. He couldn’t look at the big mech. He watched his lap as Megatron gestured to the dents on either side of his helm.

Ratchet squinted. His optics activated their zoom-function with a tinny _whirr._ Then, ominously, they swung to examine Bumblebee’s servo: the plating crushed in on the delicate wires that controlled the strength of his grip.

“I... see."

Bumblebee wished he didn’t. This was humiliating enough as it was.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Ratchet issued his all-clear a breem later. Well – for two of them, at least. Starscream’s wings were causing Knock Out some bother (no less than the mech himself, who cursed up a solar-storm whenever Knock Out activated his pain sensors to check for damage.)

A quiet snort. Not from Ratchet, from…

Bee glanced to the side. Megatron sat on the reinforced medical berth – the one built to take weights up to and including Optimus’s old upgraded form. He was watching Starscream.

And he was _smiling._

Not a cold smile, nor a cruel one. An expression Bee never expected to see on that demonic old face. Megatron's optics crinkled with fondness and his scarred lips quirked up, revealing a flash of teeth, jagged as broken glass.

Red optics twitched to meet his. Bee relocated his stare – not fast enough.

“Scout.” A bass rumble of a word.

Bee’s plates clamped tight to his protoform. But Megatron made no retaliation for the dents Ratchet had hammered out of his bucket. He pushed heavily to his pedes, resettling weight making the room feel like it was spiralling inwards, as if his gravitational pull alone was great enough to crush them together. Bee felt an immense sense of vertigo, gazing up into those ancient, unreadable eyes.

No fondness, when the old gladiator looked at him. Bee had no idea what he was thinking.

“Accompany me,” Megatron said.

Ratchet snatched a wrench from his trusty medical tray. “I’m not sure that’s a good –“

“It’s fine.” As much as Bee would love to see him hurl it at Megatron's helm, he also didn't want to watch him die. He looked up at the Warlord. “Let’s go.”

“Master,” hissed Starscream from Knock Out’s berth. “Don’t –“

“Don’t call him _Master_ in public,” said Knock Out, with an optic-roll so exaggerated it looked liable to snap his vision-cables. “Honestly, mech. Bots will start to get the wrong idea.”

He had no clue how right he was. Bee’s dry tongue prodded the back of his dentae. He jerked a sharp nod at Megatron and led the way.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Well,” said Megatron. They trekked along the long corridor that led down towards the airlock. Bee had to walk a pace behind, as Megatron all but filled the tunnel, his shoulder-guards brushing the ceiling. “You must have questions.”

So many, not all of which were appropriate – or which Bee wanted answering. A stupid, sparkling-like part of him kept whispering _how does it fit…_

Starscream wasn’t the largest mech after all (whereas, with the exception of the Cityformers and Unicron himself, Megatron might just qualify). 

He opted for something a little less likely to get him off-lined. “You hit him.”

The measured, heavy boom of Megatron’s pede-steps paused, then resumed. “I do.” His voice was horribly neutral.

“Why?”

“Because he enjoys it.”

“He enjoys being _hit?_ Being _hurt?_ ” His disbelief shone through in his voice. It must be his imagination, but Megatron looked a little warm about the faceplates.

“This is not a discussion I’m comfortable having with you, but perhaps, if you were to ask Ultra Magnus –“

Pits, no. He'd let Bee down enough, lately. “Starscream doesn’t _enjoy_ being hurt,” he insisted, servos bunching again. “He’s a _coward._ Everyone knows it! He’s terrified of pain!”

Megatron looked to be suffering a fair amount of agony himself, albeit of the mechgraine sort. He massaged his temples with a long, low ex-vent. “Different _types_ of pain –“

“Like the pain you used to put him through, when you were beating him up every cycle during the war?”

This time, Megatron stopped for real. Bee, revved up on fury, almost headbutted his back. He stilled himself at the last moment, intakes catching. But no black fist swung for his head.

“I,” said Megatron, in a voice as old as tired as the war itself, “have _regrets…_ ”

“Regrets don’t change _scrap!_ ”

“You think I don’t know that?”

Megatron turned on him then, as quickly as he could in the enclosed space. His armour scratched the ceiling. Hot sparks glittered, falling around them like acid rain. Bee wished it ruined the effect, but faced with filed fangs, a hulking frame warped by eldritch energies, and chaos-purple eyes, Megatron could’ve donned a tutu and it would still have been scary.

“You think I don’t know that?” the Warlord repeated, softer. “I regret allowing myself to become so corrupted. I regret losing my way. I regret taking that shard of Unicron’s blood inside myself, I regret not recognizing the havoc it played over my systems in the years to come! But most of all…” His voice broke off. He looked away. “I regret how much I took for granted. And how much - and who - I hurt.”

It wasn’t exactly an ode to all the innocent lives he’d taken, whether indirectly or with his own servos. But it was something. A flicker of awareness. The sort of potential that Optimus had always believed lurked somewhere within.

“I realized,” Megatron continued. “After Starscream’s return from exile. That it was I who drove him away. That my cruel treatment of him had been… _unwise._ ”

“For your cause,” said Bee. Yeah, Optimus might’ve been moved by this flicker of repentance, but Bee was a harder mech to impress.

“For myself.” That strange ghost of a smile flickered and died on Megatron’s scarified faceplates. “You know, we were lovers once. In the early days, when Vos was a neutral city-state. I won their Air Commander’s affections, and his formidable Seeker-force were pledged to my cause.”

Like words from an old history book. They filled Bee’s processors with places he’d never been, sights he’d never seen. Sights which, thanks to Megatron and Starscream, he might never see again - not in his lifetime, anyhow.

Vos, sparkling like molten mercury, spires pronging at the sky. Home of the fliers. A sacred haven for all those sparked with wings.

It had burned, late in the war, when the Autobots caught wind of an upcoming truce between neutrals and Decepticon forces. After that, all fliers had allied themselves with the purple badge, whether or not it was in their best interests. The Decepticons had their fair share of unjust bombings under their belt – far more than the Autobots, in truth. But from the way Optimus used to speak of Vos, Bee knew Megatron hadn’t been the only one with regrets.

He cracked open his mouth. “What changed?” _When did you start hitting him?_

It spoke a lot to how much his torment at Unicron’s servos had affected the old Warlord, for he looked at Bee with clear, albeit purple optics, and said, quite simply: “I did.”

And so, Megatron talked. And Bee didn’t give into the overwhelming urge to punch him, but instead _listened._ And the next joor, when Knock Out finally pushed a flustered Seeker out the medbay with much winking and waggling of the brows, Bee was waiting.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“So, let me get this straight,” he said, before Starscream’s wide eyes could dart from side to side and settle on an escape route. “You and Megatron were together. Then he broke it off because he wanted to focus on… the war.”  _Tyranny, domination. The eradication of Bee’s old scout crew. The crushing of his voice box._ “And _you_ got pissy and started trying to kill him…”

“I – well! He deserved it!”

“Because he _dumped you…_ ”

“There was more to it than that!”

Bee spoke louder, drowning him out. “So, _he_ started smacking you about, which only made you _more_ determined to off-line him…”

“You’re – you’re oversimplifying _horrendously_ –“

“And _somewhere_ along the line, it starts getting you both going. So you still hate each other’s guts and he’s still beating you up but now you’re somehow in love too?”

“No.” Starscream said that word a little more emphatically than the rest. Bee ceased his tirade, nodding to indicate that Starscream ought to explain. “A – a little, um. Hate-fragging. May have been involved, but we didn’t begin our… second attempt at an actual _relationship._ Not for a long time. Not until…”

“Until after your return from exile,” Bee filled in. “Before I. Y’know.”

Starscream’s claws gave a tiny twitch. “Murdered Lord Megatron.”

“Yes. That.” Bee cleared his vocalizer. “Which led to Unicron, which led to the well of All-Sparks being refilled, which led to Megatron having his big heel-face turn moment, which led to you two getting back together for good. Right?” Best put a positive spin on it.

Starscream opened his mouth like he wanted to argue, but then – for once – took the sensible option. “What's a 'heel-face turn'?"

"Human thing."

"Whatever. You have, of course, failed to grasp the complexities generated from thousands of years of conflicting enmity and amity, but in the interests of getting you to stop talking, your summation of events is... acceptable.”

“Okay, okay.” Bee took a step closer. He didn’t want him to make a run for it. “Just one more question.”

Starscream folded his arms. “Get on with it then.”

“Why the frag do you call him Master in public?”

Starsceram flushed. Bee, emboldened, continued. “That’s gross! We don’t need to know about your interface habits!”

Starscream’s faceplates had heated to the point where they emitted a dull red glow, clashing horribly with his optics. _Good,_ thought Bee, vindictive. _Let him suffer._

“We have refugees returning at the end of the solar-cycle,” he told him. He was tempted to add a finger-wag, but thought that might be overboard. He _was_ still talking to the several-millennia-old Decepticon Air Commander, after all. “For Primus’s sake, tone it down a bit before then. It’s uncomfortable for everyone on board. Not to mention, pretty damn unhealthy for you. You realize you still flinch whenever anyone moves too fast around you?"

Starscream's eyes narrowed. "Mind your words, Scout."

"Look. He hurt you. That's what it comes down to. He hurt you for _centuries._ And I know we live for millennia, but that's not something that just goes away!"

Starscream snorted. "I am no _victim._ I'll have you know that I tried to snuff the old rustbucket's spark at every opportunity!"

"It doesn't mean you deserved to be treated like that."

"I was your enemy! I thought I deserved to be thrown in the pit and smelted!"

"Yes, but..." Bee struggled to find words. "There's a difference between punishment for justice's sake, and punishment for the sake of tyranny."

Those crossed arms tightened. "Maybe for you Autobots. I don't put much stock in _justice._ "

Bee didn't want to turn this into a morality debate. Not when there was a serious conversation that needed to be had - not just for the sake of his sensibilities, but for Starscream himself. "This is your choice. I'm not going to take it from you. But seriously, just... consider that you might be falling into this a bit too fast?"

"I don't fall," said Starscream, haughtily. "I _fly._ "

"Even so. We need to set some ground rules. Keep berth-play in the damn berthroom, and –“

“Can we please stop having this conversation?”

“ – And _don’t_ let him scrap you to the point where you need to steal medikits, or waste resources. Not until we have enough supplies to feed the matter synthesizer for the next century! The rest of us are still on rations, you know. If Magnus tells Arcee that you’ve been squandering medikits on unnecessary repairs, she'll start a revolt.” Bee shook his head, giving his disappointment free rein. “I expected better conduct from you, Starscream. I expected more _pride_.”

That had the Seeker’s eyes flashing. “I have pride!”

“Then please, feel free to exercise it. You and Megatron can get up to whatever you want behind closed doors. Just make sure you respect the rest of us enough to keep it there. Deal?”

He suspected Starscream might’ve said anything to make him stop talking, but his nod of affirmation still looked pretty heartfelt. Bee mirrored it.

“Good. The first load of stock’s awaiting you at the _Nemesis_ sub-space entry port 24GA.”

Starscream’s faceplates, pinched tight with shame and impotent frustration, now slackened into horror. “I still have to do that?”

“Of course! You didn’t think we’d let you off lightly, did you?” Bee turned to leave, although he couldn’t resist one last jab: “Don’t think safewording will get you out of _this_ discipline.”

“Primus.” Starscream pressed his servos to his heated face.

Really, there was little else to say on the subject.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Bee waited a few joors. He avoided Ultra Magnus - if the mech had just _told him straight,_ they wouldn't be here, would they? He went on a quick wheel-spin with Knock Out, noticing that the medic's jabber was starting to feel comfortable rather than irritating. He had a cube with Arcee, and was careful not to mention the events that had sent the Mighty Megatron to Ratchet's medbay, though she kept shooting him downright devilish smirks.

Then he ventured into the _Nemesis's_ subspace.

It was a risk - there were no Autobots in the immediate vicinity to pounce on Starscream, should he choose this moment to avenge his battered honor. But Bee had to take it. There was one last thing he had to get off his chassis, before he powered-down in his berth that night.

"Starscream?"

Starscream didn't stop with his grouchy arrangement of empty energon cubes in an attractive, yet not especially pragmatic pyramid. His wings flared aggressively behind him. "I don't need another lecture."

"Then it's a good thing I don't plan on giving one. Look." Bee had to fight not to shuffle his pedes. He needed this to sound serious. The words of an adult mech, not just the team mascot. "If it ever gets too much. If he ever goes too far..."

"He won't," said Starscream. Bee wasn't inclined to believe him. Megatron wasn't renowned for his temper-control, and Starscream could be an annoying little slagger when he put his mind to it. Fire, meet gasoline. Or jet fuel, more accurately.

"If he ever _does._ If you need to talk, I'm here. I'm listening." Bee took a deep invent. "You're not alone, you know. Megatron's not the only mech you have to rely on."

Starscream's squint had a suspicious edge. "So if he hurts me when I don't want it... You will help me vanquish Lord Megatron, once and for all?"

Then  _All Hail Starscream._ Bee grimaced. Primus, Arcee would be  _so mad_ if she could hear him right now. "You could lie to me. I know that."

"And yet you still give your word?"

Bee shrugged. "You need someone in your corner."

"I don't need _anyone_."

Harsh words, harsh tone. For a second though, Bee swore he saw Starscream smile. Not a malicious, _I'm going to be next ruler of the Decepticons now I have this stupid Autobot in my pocket_ smile. In fact the expression (there and gone again, faster than a shuttering optic) looked almost like _gratitude._

It could be feigned. Still, call him naive, but Bee wanted to believe it.

"Not at the moment," he agreed. "If you do though, I'm here."

Starscream mulled it over. Then he widened his optics, hunched his shoulders, and let his wings droop down low. "And if I  _need_ someone to help me count all these energon cubes?"

"No way in hell, Screamer. For that, you're on your own."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Thank you so much to every commenter! Sorry it took me so long to answer the last round; the new year kicked off with a bang and an avalanche of work falling off my desk. I'm sorry if my request for comments/kudos comes off as rude. If I'm writing purely for my own enjoyment, I write my original novels. If I want some feedback and instant gratification, I write fanfic. If there's no instant gratification, there's simply no reason for me to continue a fic. I don't see any problem with laying out my terms clearly? Perhaps that's my autism-brain speaking, but it's just me being honest. Plus, it obviously gets results when readers know the stakes so... :shrugs:**

**Author's Note:**

> **Please leave comments and kudos! I won't update this fic if I don't get any. Feed your writer.**


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